


Excavate

by No_its_night_monkey



Series: Excavate [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Absent Parents, Abusive Parents, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Daddy Issues, Domestic Violence, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Language, Family Issues, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Mild Blood, Mommy Issues, Mother-Son Relationship, Past Child Abuse, Self-Hatred, Teen Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:02:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 77,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27229303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/No_its_night_monkey/pseuds/No_its_night_monkey
Summary: Riley knew how to take care of himself. He wasn't good at much, but he could do that and do it well. Cycling through violence and neglect from his father, he didn't have much of a choice. When the abuse turns extreme and Riley can no longer take care of himself, he's forced to rely on the mother who abandoned him when he was five, who also has another family and doesn't appear too pleased about having him back in her life.Physically and emotionally, Riley tries to heal, only to be repeatedly knocked back down. When it comes to his mom, is there even a relationship to salvage? How many chances are too many? And at what point should he just give up and stay down like his father told him?
Series: Excavate [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2011195
Comments: 12
Kudos: 25





	1. Stay Down

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! This is my first original fic that I'm actually posting. The story is 95% written at this point and I'll be posting chapters daily if there's any interest. There are some mixed up tenses and errors in there, but getting up the nerve to actually post is pretty big for me, so please excuse the rough edges before I go back and smooth them out.

“Alright sweetheart, this is it. Time to say goodbye- oomph!” A little boy collided with her legs, wrapping his arms around them and burying his face between her knees. She reached her hand down and patted the tawny curls atop his head.

“Mommy, don’ go! I don’ wanna go ta school!” His voice was muffled by her slacks and Sharon gave a rueful smile, similar to the other parents dropping their children off for the first day of Kindergarten. The intense nerves and hastiness that raised the hair on the back of her neck were most likely not a shared experience, she mused.

“Riley, baby…” She crooned, voice gentle enough to get him to look up at her with wide, wet, brown eyes. “It’s time for you to be a big boy. Remember the backpack and lunchbox we got you because you because you are so big now?” The little boy sniffled before untangling his arms from her legs and steeling his eyes at the Captain America themed lunch box gripped tightly in his little fingers. She had to get him to let go.

Her little boy looked around at the other pairs of parents and children. Some children ran toward the classroom with excitement, leaving proud parents asking each other where the time had gone. Others were experiencing similar difficult goodbyes with tears and little hands clinging to whatever garments they could find to avoid being left behind.

Sad eyes looked back up at her. “Mommy, I wanna stay with you.” He’d lost the hysteric note in his voice and was whispering now, just as he did when he told her a secret for her ears only. Sharon’s heart clenched painfully, sending waves through her chest and down into her stomach. 

The temptation to give into her son’s wishes, to pick him up and take him away, to take him with her… it squeezed her insides and her voice caught in her constricted throat. But the minute wiggle in her lower abdomen, highlighted with flashes of screaming, shattering glass, and a fist like a vice grip on her upper arm doused her like a bucket of ice water.

Leaving was her option. If she wanted to keep herself and the young life growing inside of her safe, leaving was her only choice. Riley would survive without her. Keith had never been angry or abusive toward their son. She had to trust that he would be okay. Taking him simply was not an option for her family… her new family. They needed a fresh start away from the monstrous presence of her ex-fiance, and Keith had guaranteed that if she took their son, he would hunt them both down and take them back by any means necessary. 

A bell echoed against the brick school structure, precipitating the final goodbyes of parents and children. Teachers could be heard ushering the Kindergarteners into their new classrooms.  
The time had come to leave. To say goodbye.

“Ri, baby… it’s time for you to go be a big boy. Can you do that for your mommy?” She knelt down and cupped his cheek in her hand, wiping a tear with her thumb. Riley righted his posture and sniffled, nodding, though the tears did not cease.

“That’s my boy.” She kissed his forehead and each freckled cheek, taking in each and every feature and hoping to imprint it on her memory. “Go on baby, your teacher is waiting. I love you Riley.” The lump in her throat felt close to bursting and Sharon lost the fight against the tears stinging her own eyes.

Riley looked back at his teacher, who waited expectantly as he was the last child left outside the classroom before bringing her back in for a quick, tight hug. 

“I love you Mommy.” He said hurriedly before turning and running toward the teacher, Captain America’s shield bouncing up and down with each step on a backpack that dwarfed him. 

The teacher welcomed him warmly, guiding him into the classroom as Sharon stared through her tears, watching intently until she couldn’t see her son any longer. 

Turning away, Sharon could hardly breathe through the tidal wave of despair that overcame her. She rubbed the growing bump that gave another wiggle, trying to glean comfort from the future ahead of her.

“Goodbye Riley.”

_____

“Stay down!”

The booted kick to his ribs sent him sprawling across the floor, all the air leaving his lungs at once. He gasped, struggling for oxygen as his torso felt alight with fire. Bringing one knee at a time, followed by each elbow under him, Riley rebelled against his father’s orders.

Through his heavy gulps, leaden footsteps approached him. Before he even had time to anticipate the assault, an identical kick caught him in the stomach again. This time, he was in too much pain to even gasp for the air that was robbed of his lungs. 

“I said STAY DOWN you stupid son of a bitch.”

Riley was incapacitated longer this time, unable to move from his prone position on the grimy wooden floor. Once he was able to draw in breaths of air, though each was more painful than the last, he crawled back onto all fours. Fractured ribs protested with a sickening crackle, but he fought through it, determined to not let his father take this victory.

His vision was dizzy and unfocused, the patchy finish of the wood whirling under him. An evil cackle cut through the white noise buzzing in his head.

“You never learned when to quit, did you?” Riley arched his neck, daring to meet his father’s glassy, inebriated glare. The man’s upper lip curled at his show of defiance. “I used to think you were stubborn, just like me.” Riley’s stomach curdled with dread as Keith bent down and cruelly grabbed the hair on each side of his head. “But it turns out you’re just a stupid fucker who never learned his place. Dumber than your slut of a mother!”

Keith drove a rage-backed knee up into Riley’s nose and mouth. A galaxy of stars exploded in front of his eyes as his nose cracked and spurted blood. His teeth sliced deep into his lips and the side of his tongue. This time, his lungs worked overtime to bring in oxygen, but he couldn’t breathe through the blood flooding his throat and nasal passages. Blood sprayed his father’s weathered work boots as he coughed pathetically.

The pressure on his scalp eased as Keith let him crash to the floor like a puppet with cut strings.

Heavy foot landings grew softer and Riley felt something akin to relief at the signal of the assault’s end. He wanted privacy to either lick his wounds or pass out in peace. With the only sound being his own raspy breathing, Riley surrendered to the pull of his heavy eyelids.

Riley’s relief was painfully short-lived, however, as the soft sounds of Keith’s footsteps returned, growing louder and angrier instead of fading away. He groaned, mourning the loss of his chance to suffer his wounds in silence. The beating was supposed to be over, but the footfalls, now closer to stomps, stopped short next to his head. He could barely force his eyes open to brace himself for however his father would launch his next attack.  
“When I tell you to stay down…” Riley only just managed to regain his faculties as the knife was driven into the back of his hand, run through, and embedded into the wooden floor. 

“YOU STAY DOWN.”

His eyes bulged at the grotesque sight. His brain tried to convince him that this wasn’t actually happening. He didn’t immediately feel the impossibly intense pain and he couldn’t understand…and then he screamed as the grisly offense was committed with his other hand. The entry, the slicing, the exit, and the hollow “thud” as the wood was impaled by the knife tip-he felt it all, and suddenly, Riley’s brain understood.

Sprawled, prostrated, and fixed to the floor by knives penetrating both of his hands, Riley screamed and cried himself hoarse. He didn’t bother crying for help, because there was no one who ever would come. Mercifully, his beaten body didn’t let him stay conscious for long. His final thought before unconsciousness took over was that he wouldn’t mind if he never woke up.

_____

Coming to, Riley feels the nauseating sensation of the knife being pulled from his right hand, and then his left in quick succession. He retches and vomits before the second knife is dropped to the ground. The pain roils through his hands and up his arms to his torso, a raging inferno and a heavy block of concrete mixed into one.

“Get the fuck to school,” came the gruff voice, obviously too hungover too continue his sadistic streak if the stench of stale whiskey was any indication. Riley couldn’t even move his hands from the site of where they’d been speared to the floor. He couldn’t imagine mustering the exertion he would need to go to school. Another wave of nausea overcame him and bile rose in his throat. He coughed and sputtered as a meaty hand fisted the stretched collar of his shirt and pulled him into a sitting position.

Riley’s world spun. Head lolled to the side and arms slack with horrific pain, he swayed like a tower on the verge of being blown over. Subconsciously, he knew his father was still in the vicinity and that he should be afraid, but for the first time in recent memory, his suffering won out over his fear. Riley couldn’t raise his defenses if he tried. 

Distantly, he considered that his father’s lesson of “Stay down when told” was seared into him, both in his soul and in the form of twin sluggishly bleeding through and through wounds on his hands. 

A black sweatshirt was whipped into his face, catching his broken nose. Against his will, he whimpered as the broken appendage shifted under the impact. Hot fresh blood streamed down, no doubt covering the dried, flaking blood from last night.

“Put that on. Don’t let anyone see your hands if you want to eat this week.” By muscle memory alone, Riley nodded. “Nobody gives a shit about you, so don’t bother hiding that nose.” Riley nodded again. He couldn’t refute that point.

A vice grip on his emaciated bicep pulled him up to stand on jelly legs. When he dropped the sweatshirt, unable to use his hands to grip anything, his father scoffed in disgust before wrestling it over his head and roughly pulling his arms through the sleeves. He couldn’t stop himself from emitting a guttural shriek at the rough treatment.

“Fuckin’ pathetic. Wipe your fuckin’ face before you go. Nobody wants to look at such an ugly piece of shit.” Riley only noticed his father stumbling away when the man was almost out the door. He thought he heard a slurred, “Look just like your whore mother,” but he was delirious enough that he couldn’t tell what was real anymore. 

The first step was the hardest. Finding strength in his legs when all he wanted to do was collapse, he shuffled toward the bathroom. Losing his balance, he caught himself on the dingy armchair and shouted as the lightning bolt of pain shot up from his hand. A smudge of blood marred the gray upholstery and Riley cringed, knowing he would pay for that later.

In the bathroom, he only gave the mirror cursory glances to see how bad the blood was on his face and to make sure he’d washed it all off. Upon trying to clean his face, Riley had found the pain of trying to turn on the faucet and wash his face excruciating. He’d managed to maneuver his fingers just enough to turn the water on, but only barely. Trying to wet a rag to clean the collage of red on his face and neck? Too much to bear. 

He fought the shifting of broken ribs to crane his neck and stick his face under the water stream long enough to saturate his face and then used his forearms to wipe the residual blood off. The towel, dingy as it was when he started, was ruined now. Another thing he’d pay for at a later time with blood and bruises.

Back in the kitchen, the staticky news came in with poor reception on the small television. Through the crackle, he could hear the temp: 29 degrees; and the time: 7:31 a.m.; both bad news for him. 

Skipping school and just passing out on the couch, free from his suffering was ridiculously tempting. He didn’t want to walk in the below-freezing temperatures to his stop to catch the bus that would get him to school with barely enough time to avoid being marked as late. He wanted to rest. But more than that, he just wanted to be unconscious so he didn’t have to feel the hot, sick pain that was consuming him.

The call that his father would get from the school, informing him of the unapproved absence would be far from worth the temporary reprieve of staying home though. And there was also no guarantee that his father wouldn’t get sent home from work for the Jack Daniels residue that radiated powerfully from his breath and sweat. 

Riley could only imagine the beating he would earn if Keith found him passed out on the couch. Considering his current condition, the assault would probably be enough to kill him. 

Would that really be so bad? It would all be over. No more pain. Keith was right when he said no one notices you. That would mean no one would miss you if your dad beat you to death.

But the same deep-rooted instincts that made him get back up every time he was beaten down dragged him out the front door and into the dreary, icy wind. Morbid thoughts of freezing to death and bleeding out on the sidewalk served as his only companion aside from the constant presence of pain that tagged along since his earliest memories.

_____

It was only through muscle memory and reluctance to pass out on the city bus that got Riley to school and class. He collapsed into his seat in his literature class slim seconds before the tardy bell rang. The teacher, Mr. Fulk, eyed him with warning at his barely on-time, noisy, and disruptive arrival. Riley tried to care, but he was too drained from the exhausting trek to school and the pain in his hands grew more intrusive by the second.

The sleeves of his black sweatshirt, which fell below his hands, were soaked through with blood. Riley cringed as a red smudge was left on the surface of his chair after only a brief contact with his sleeve.

For what was far from the first time that day, he truly wondered whether he would get through the day. Maybe coming to school so he wouldn’t get beaten to death was futile because he was just going to bleed out anyway. 

Distantly, he could hear Mr. Fulk instructing the class to pass forward their assignments from yesterday. Through his deliriousness, he thought the man sounded like he was teaching from inside an aquarium.

Riley knew he should feel guilty about not having the assignment to turn in, but he couldn’t manage it. In a different life, maybe he wouldn’t have been beaten and knifed to the floor and he would have had time to type two pages on themes in MacBeth’s first act. But as it stood currently, even if he had the assignment, his broken ribs wouldn’t have allowed him to bend down to retrieve it from his backpack. And his pierced hands wouldn’t have allowed him to grip the paper, at least without painting it red. 

Instead, when his classmate behind him attempted to pass the row’s papers to him, he just felt done. He was dizzy, tired, and in pain, and now the weight of failure fell on top of him, crushing his fragile disposition. He ignored the offered papers, instead choosing to lay his head down on the cool surface of his desk. 

“No paper Mr. Flanagan?”

His teacher’s voice still sounded farther away than it actually was. Barely mustering the strength to sit up again, Riley shook his head. He didn’t have the assignment. He didn’t even have his backpack.

“You may want to consider putting effort into your homework Mr. Flanagan, lest you be forced to take this class again while your classmates move on to bigger and better things.” 

Hot red shame blossomed from the base of his neck to the tips of his ears. Mr. Fulk’s disciplinary method of public humiliation and criticism felt needlessly harsh. He opened his mouth to try and defend himself, but the words wouldn’t come. 

“This wasn’t a difficult assignment Mr. Flanagan.” 

The last jab broke him. He’d barely been holding himself together since his father woke him up by pulling serrated steak knives from his hands, and the disappointed sneer from his teacher, coupled with ill-intentioned laughs and whispered jeers from his classmates snapped his restraint.

“I’m sorry Mr. Fulk.” Riley didn’t recognize the voice coming from his mouth. It was more resonant than his normal tone and didn’t contain his nervous stutter. “Next time I’ll have someone pull the knives out of my hands so I can sit down and write your worthless fucking paper.” 

“Mr. Flanagan—”

Riley felt as though his subconscious had taken control of the wheel and thrown him in the trunk of the car. And the Riley in control was stomping on the gas and speeding recklessly toward a brick wall. 

Under the subconscious influence, he pushed up his blood soaked sweatshirt sleeves, not even acknowledging the horrendous pain as he flexed each hand, disturbing the wounds and causing fresh streams of blood to escape. Feigning innocence, he held his hands out for his teacher to see and felt twisted satisfaction at the horror that washed over his face like a bucket of ashen gray paint.

“Are these enough of an excuse for not completing your paper Mr. Fulk?” Riley was so entrenched in his tirade that he didn’t notice the classroom around him had gone deathly silent. “If not, I’ll ask my dad to write me a note. He’s the one who skewered me to the fucking floor and left me there all night.” His voice took on a dangerous edge. “He also broke my nose, but you can probably tell. And my ribs too, wanna see?”

It had been years since Riley had spoken this much at once, but the words were a raging waterfall at this point. His deep dark secrets were spilling out and he had no way to stop them. The skeletons that filled his closet to the brim fought with each other to escape as the hinges that enforced their captivity splintered. 

“Riley...”

Riley’s vision began to swirl as though he were riding a roller coaster. The burst of energy that fueled his tirade left him as though a balloon had popped. He swayed and suddenly up and down didn’t make sense anymore. Mr. Fulk’s voice was only a faint caricature of how it usually sounded, and if the man said anything after his name, Riley wouldn’t know it.

He was unconscious before he hit the floor.

__________

“Audrey, don’t forget your sheet music tonight! I’m not paying Mrs. Hamilton $80 an hour so you can practice scales. Your recital is next week and you need to be sharp!—”

A blonde girl with a high ponytail swept into the kitchen, cutting Sharon off.

“Mom, you don’t have to yell when I’m right here.” The girl’s hands were full with a clarinet case, a drawstring bag, and a cell phone while a bulky backpack perched on her shoulders. At Sharon’s interrogative glare, she huffed and pulled a folder out of her drawstring bag. “Sheet music. Right here.” 

Nodding her approval, Sharon grabbed the car keys from the marble countertop and they hurried toward the door.

“Remember honey, I’ll be a few minutes late picking you up because Matt’s cross country practice doesn’t finish until 5 and it is a 15 minute drive to Mrs. Hamilton’s.”

“I know Mom. Same as last week, and the week before. Remember?” Sharon could practically feel gravity shift with the power of Audrey’s eye roll. 

“You say that, and yet last week you sent four texts asking me why I wasn’t there to pick you up—” The loud melody of their doorbell, quickly precipitated by the loud barking of their Yellow Labrador made Sharon groan in frustration. They were already running behind schedule and if they were too much later, it would cut into the very expensive hour of clarinet lessons for her 11 year-old daughter.

“It’s probably just a salesman. Get in the car and I’ll be right there.” Sharon said, heel clacking against the polished tile floor as she rushed to the door. 

“Murph, will you be quiet!” She nudged the hyperactive dog out of her way and tried to peer through the side panel but the decorative glass distorted her view. Fully prepared to say a firm “Not interested!” and slam the door, Sharon cracked the door open and was instead greeted with a police badge being held up to her line of view.

“Good evening ma’am. Are you Mrs. Sharon McGrath?” The tall, bald officer asked shortly. 

Thousands of different scenarios raced through her mind, each worse than the last as she tried to comprehend why a police officer was at her front door. Was her husband okay? Matthew? Andrew? What if there had been an accident at Brad’s work? Or at the school? Were her sons missing, or taken? Or at the hospital? Did Matthew forget his inhaler before he started practice? The possibilities were dizzying. 

“Yes officer, I’m Sharon McGrath.” She was dismayed at the tremble in her voice.

“You are the biological mother of a…” the officer checked his pocket notebook before looking back up at her. “Riley Flanagan?”

Sharon felt as though all the air had been sucked out of her surroundings. Of all the things the officer could have asked her, that was light years away from what she expected. 

Reflexively, she wanted to say “no,” slam the door and forget that she ever heard the name. But the police were only here because they already knew the answer to that question, and she had already confirmed her identity.

But Sharon, shaken to her core at the mention of the son she’d long ago abandoned, couldn’t figure out how she wanted to respond. 

“I haven’t…” Haven’t seen him in over ten years?

“I don’t…” Don’t take care of him anymore?

“He’s not…” Not my responsibility?

“Ma’am?” The police officer questioned when she kept choking on her words. Taking a deep breath, Sharon composed herself and spoke calmly. 

“He is his father’s responsibility.” The officer appeared puzzled and he looked down at his notepad once more. “I’d offer to get you his contact, but we haven’t spoken in eleven years. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help…” Sharon moved to close the door, eager to be finished with the interaction and the invasive reminder of a life she’d left behind.

“Mrs. McGrath, Riley’s father has been arrested on charges of abuse.” She froze, long buried worst fears working their way through their confines. “Your son is currently recovering from surgery at St. John’s. We need you to come down there to sign some forms and take over his care.”

The ground beneath Sharon’s entire existence narrowed to the width of a pin. This is what she’d walked away from over a decade before, with solid intentions of leaving it behind and never acknowledging it again. Her ex, their son, the abuse…

Her life had been rebuilt with foundations of love, support, and family covering up the shambles and heartache of her previous life. That life didn’t get to tarnish what she had now.

“Ma’am, we’ve been told he’s going to be okay, but we really need you to come down there now. He’s an unattended minor in a hospital and you need to sign consents and speak with Child Services about the case against Riley’s father.”

From the officer’s sympathetic expression, he obviously thought she was frozen with worry and concern. If he only knew how much she was trying to figure a way out of the situation… Sharon tried to quell the trembling that she felt from her knees to her fingers, before slipping on the mask of composure once more.

“Officer, I haven’t taken an active role in R-Riley’s life since he was a young child. I don’t think I’m the appropriate person to contact concerning his welfare.” The name felt like sandpaper in her mouth as she tripped over it. She moved to close her front door again, but the wood made solid contact with a shiny black shoe as the police officer blocked her.

This time when the officer spoke, all the sympathy had been wiped clean and replaced with sincere authority.

“Mrs. McGrath, according to records you are still a custodial parent of this child and never signed your rights away, regardless whether you’ve been present in his life or not.” Then his voice took a frightening swerve toward threatening and his hard eyes narrowed at her. “With no alternate options for guardians, if you refuse to take responsibility for him, you will be charged with child abandonment and Child Protective Services will open an investigation into you and your family.”

It felt as though she had fallen off the pinpoint her world had been narrowed to and that she was heading toward terminal velocity. The implications of charges being brought against her and CPS investigating her family went well beyond overwhelming. Those things she had outrun and scrubbed from her memory loomed on the horizon like black storm clouds with low, rumbling thunder and violent strikes of lightning.

“Mom! Are you coming?” Audrey’s voice echoing in the foyer broke her from her spiraling thoughts. She looked back at her daughter, who was waiting impatiently for her to take her to her clarinet lesson. All Sharon could see was her daughter’s innocence in all of this. And her two little boys, Matt and Andrew. None of them deserved to be dragged into the mud of her past. She couldn’t put them through the painful process of an investigation.

You didn’t have a problem putting your other little boy through pain when you walked out on him.

“Mom!” Her daughter called again, crossing the line from impatience to urgency.

Sharon lingered for a moment longer watching Audrey, capturing the last moment before the storm of her past arrived, and then looked back at the stern glare of the police officer. She kept watching him as she called back to Audrey, distracted and reluctant.

“Um, change of plans honey. We have to go to the hospital instead.”

As the officer bid her goodbye and returned to his patrol car, Sharon could have sworn she felt icy raindrops, though hardly a cloud shone in the sky. The storm had finally caught up with her.


	2. Reluctance

To say Sharon was in a hurry to get to the hospital would have been far from the truth. After she’d dropped Audrey off at a friend’s house to avoid dragging her into this mess, Sharon took the back roads that went outside the city limits instead of the Google Maps approved route to get to St. John’s.

She drove the speed limit, even under when there was no other traffic to impede. She needed the time to think without her daughter’s confused and relentless questions and the judgemental, threatening glare from Officer high horse. She needed time to consider what this would mean for her, and for her family if she was forced to bring Riley home and into their lives. She needed time to think of other options; about whether she would be allowed to sign her parental rights to Riley away before he even knew she was notified about him. And she needed time to think about the twisting feeling she got in her heart when she thought about whether that was actually what she wanted or not.

But even going below the speed limit on the scenic route, Sharon eventually ran out of road and ended up in the parking lot at St. John’s hospital, sitting in the driver’s seat with keys in hand. Her hands shook, lightly jingling the “I Heart Mommy” keychain that Matthew had given her last year on her birthday. She hadn’t even mustered the courage to take off her seatbelt as she stared at the hospital’s glass facade, too intimidated to go inside.

Because Riley was inside.

Her son, whom she had abandoned with his father was inside, allegedly recovering from surgery. And the aforementioned father had been arrested on abuse charges. The officer hadn’t directly mentioned that one event was related to the other, but it didn’t take superhuman comprehension to put together that the abusive man she had left had been arrested for abusing the child she left behind with him.

A black pit of guilt whirled through her stomach like a slow-moving hurricane. 

She’d been so desperate for a way out from her fiance’s abusive clutches when she was younger that she took Keith’s word that he would never hurt their son at face value. The promise had been the only way she’d justified to herself that it was okay to leave him. He would grow up without a mother, but he would have his father and he wouldn’t have to witness the scourge of domestic violence painting his formative years.

Oh, how pathetically naive she’d been, to believe that monster’s lies. Keith only lived on pillars of alcohol and threats meant to entrap his victims. And she had escaped and shed that title, no longer being a victim, and too ashamed of her past to call herself a survivor. In those actions of self-preservation she’d passed the burden of “victim” and “survivor” to Riley.

Sharon defied all of her instincts to slam the key back in the ignition, put the car in reverse, and peel out of the parking lot and back to her family where they could resume their life and forget about this nightmare. She knew that if she walked in there, life as she knew it, her family as she knew it, would never be the same. 

Sharon also knew that she had no choice but to go in if the alternative was a CPS worker asking her children questions and involving them in issues they were too young and innocent to understand.

Gathering whatever threads of courage she could manage, she unbuckled her seatbelt, got out of the car, and walked slowly toward the hospital entrance.

She wished that she didn’t feel dread with every heavy step.

______

“Um, hi. I’m looking for, ah, Riley Flanagan.” The name felt strange on her tongue, like letters that just didn’t go together, or like ordering a new dish from a Thai restaurant instead of simply stating her son’s name.

The receptionist typed for a few moments before looking back up at her.

“Okay…” More typing. “And what’s your relation?”

“I’m his mother.” 

Her statement tasted like a lie, but the receptionist resumed her typing, for longer this time. She found herself needlessly irritated by the incessant clacking, but just as she was on the edge of losing her temper, the woman looked up from her screen with a cordial smile.

“Yes, Mrs. Flanagan—”

“It’s Mrs. McGrath.” She bit back with venom, feeling even closer to the end of her rope. But if the receptionist was affected by her irritated demeanor, she didn’t show it.

“My apologies Mrs. McGrath. It looks like he is still in recovery from surgery, but the head nurse needs you to sign some forms, and insurance has a few questions as well. If you want to go through that door,” she pointed at the double-doors that led out of the waiting area. “And go right, you’ll find the nurses station. Just tell them that you’re Riley’s mom and they will take care of you from there!” 

Sharon wanted to chastise her for her cheerfulness and her casual mention of “Riley’s mom,” but she forced herself to take a deep breath. This woman was just doing her job. It was not her fault that guilt was barreling down on Sharon like an avalanche and she was a hiker stuck in a bear trap.

With a tight lipped smile and a thank you, she left.

_____

After Sharon located the nurses station, things moved very quickly. The head nurse greeted her with a sympathetic smile that bordered on pity before shoving a clipboard near to bursting with forms into her hands. 

She signed hastily wherever she saw yellow highlighter before passing it back. She didn’t want to read anything about what they had to do to him. And it felt wrong that she had to be the one to approve it. 

“Thank you so much Mrs. McGrath. If you want to sit in that waiting room over there, we will let you know when Riley is moved out of recovery and into a room where you can see him. There’s coffee and vending if you need it.” Sharon nodded, grabbing her purse and trying to leave before someone questioned why she wasn’t more worried about her child.

“Also, we have a representative from social services who will come speak with you about everything that’s happened today. I know this is probably a lot. You must be so overwhelmed.” She couldn’t have felt more like a fraud if the word was painted in red on her forehead. 

Nodding again in acknowledgement, she left and settled herself in the farthest, darkest corner of the waiting room. There was only one other occupant, an elderly gentleman with an oxygen tank parked next to him. His face was downturned and dark with the worry one could only feel for a deeply-loved one.

The guilt in her stomach leaped up and nipped at her when she couldn’t duplicate that feeling.

The representative from social services came to visit her before she could even pull her phone from her purse. With a sympathetic/pitiful smile that mirrored the nurse’s and rehearsed, banal words of comfort, she launched into the details of why all this was happening.

Sharon swallowed her instincts of motherly concern at the details of Riley passing out at school and being taken by ambulance to the hospital. She resisted the urge to squirm in her seat when, after statements from Riley’s teacher that indicated stab wounds inflicted by Keith, a doctor’s exam revealed a decorated tapestry of wounds and scar tissue that pointed toward a prolonged history of abuse and neglect. And she failed to feel relief after her ex-fiance’s arrest was confirmed. 

A lifetime ago, she would have felt that relief, but those emotions were too far gone to access now. And frankly, she wasn’t interested in them.

“The surgeon said that repairing the wounds in his hands was a success and that after recovery and some physical therapy, he believes that Riley should regain complete use and dexterity.” Again, she knew she should feel relief, but a hollow placeholder for it took up that space.

“Do you have any questions for me, Mrs. McGrath?”

“What happens if I…” She began, trying not to choke on the loaded, taboo question. “What happens to him if I don’t take him?” The woman’s tired face showed only confusion.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Is there—do I have an option to sign away my parental rights?” She was more insistent this time, not dancing around what she wanted to say.

The social worker watched her with a grim understanding and Sharon could feel the dynamic between them shift as the woman shifted in her chair to distance herself. It was clear that they were adversaries instead of allies when it came to Riley’s welfare.

Sharon almost admired how the woman gathered her composure instead of speaking with the frustration she obviously felt when she addressed her question.

“That would be highly unusual Mrs. McGrath, and I’m afraid the family court system would not look kindly upon a suitable parent surrendering rights when there are no options aside from state custody available. You would open yourself up to possible charges of child abandonment, and considering your son’s condition, even child endangerment or criminal negligence.” 

A long, weighty pause stretched between them.

“Is there a reason you don’t want to take your son?”

Sharon wanted to scream and cry. Her frustration and feelings of unfairness at the situation bubbled hot in her stomach. There were dozens of reasons, each of them more selfish than the last, she acknowledged, but none that she could voice without bringing immense shame and judgement upon herself. 

“No. Thank you.” She said firmly, ending their conversation.

After the woman left, her judgement still hanging heavily in the air, Sharon stomped down her feelings, adding more pressure to the top of the already volatile and reactive mixture of guilt, shame, anger, and hate. 

_____

By the time the sky outside turned from blue to orange to black, Sharon grew aware that the peculiar nature of the situation had made its rounds through the nurses in this unit. She did not fit the profile for a worried mother, she knew, and her interaction with the nurse who’d told her that Riley was out of recovery still played vividly in her mind.

“Mrs. McGrath, we’ve moved your son out of recovery and into a room where you can stay with him. If you want to follow me…” The young woman turned, obviously assuming she would eagerly follow.

“No thank you.” She put up a hand. “I’d rather wait here.” The nurse failed miserably at hiding her confusion, looking back at her as though she had turned purple and grown an extra arm.

“Just tell me when he wakes up.” She said, turning back to the news app on her phone.

Truthfully, she was having difficulty building up the nerve to see him. Sharon couldn’t shake the feeling of being an imposter, and, probably more significantly, she couldn’t shed the guilt at just not wanting to be here.

She was entirely unprepared to see her son again, especially under these dire circumstances. Eleven years had passed since she’d dropped him at school and then disappeared from his life without another word. No phone calls, letters, or birthday cards, nothing to acknowledge that she’d given birth to him and been his parent for five years before wiping his existence clean from her own. 

Riley probably hated her. Particularly since she now had a glimpse of the life that she left him with; the monster that she left him to grow up with. 

Maybe he wouldn’t even want to live with Sharon and her family, she considered.

But time to gather her courage was spent. A tight-lipped nurse walked over; a different one from the woman who had told her that Riley had been moved to a room, but the awkwardness still hung in the air, thick and stale.

“Mrs. McGrath, your son is awake.”

_____

The only thing Riley felt when waking up was heavy.

His hands were heavy. His arms were heavy. His legs and feet, and chest all felt as though gravity was unfairly focusing all of it’s force directly on him. Even his head felt like it had been filled with lead, though he was distantly grateful that the place he couldn’t move from was comfortable.

A soft, comfortable bed… it had been a long, long time since he’d been afforded that luxury.

He furrowed his eyebrows, unable to even consider opening his eyes. Each eyelid must have weighed a thousand pounds. But he was confused about where he could be and what was going on. He couldn’t even recall the last thing he remembered. His thoughts were heavy too as they moved through his head like chilled molasses. 

Parting his stinging, split lips, he tried to speak, but could only emit a breathy moan. His mouth felt like it was coated in sand. It was so so dry. He wanted water, but the only thing his throat could produce were breathy exhales that failed to approach language.

Riley felt locked into his body, trapped under the weight of a building, and just tired. 

“Riley, can you hear me?” A warm, unfamiliar voice acted like a lifeline in his confines. He turned his head slowly toward the stimuli, uneasy with how much effort such a small movement took. He opened his mouth again to ask for water, this time, able to emit “wa...wa…”, enough for someone to understand him.

“Water, are you thirsty?” The pillow barely moved under his nod, but whoever was there with him seemed to understand, as a plastic straw poked at his parted lips. His throat somewhat soothed, Riley felt more of the weight holding him down slough off. 

His eyelids fluttered open, taking time to adjust even to the low light in the room. The hospital room. He was in a hospital. And the person who gave him water was a nurse. His vision was still painful and fuzzy, but he saw his hands were laying at his sides above the tan blanket, heavily wrapped in big white bandages. 

Urgency was knocking, begging to be let in and acknowledged, memories were returning like pieces of a puzzle being turned right side up, but Riley was still just too tired to let it all in.. And warm. He was actually warm, which was a pleasant change.

“Riley,” the kind nurse in robin’s egg blue scrubs put a light hand on his shoulder. A barely discernible grunt was all he could do to reply. “Nurse Andrea is going to go get your mom. She’ll be right in sweetie.”

Confused, he shook his head with more conviction. This was wrong. They were wrong. He had to tell them that they were wrong.

“No… Don’ hav’a mom.” His voice was an uncomfortable croak. Riley’s head fell back against the pillow, too drained to worry any further. It wasn’t like there was anything he could do about it right now.

Riley was almost back asleep when he heard it. 

“He’s right in here. He’s still coming up from the anesthetic, but he’s awake so you should at least be able to say hi.” The confusion was back, and his mind felt too fuzzy for him to figure out what was going on.

Though the weight was back on his eyelids, he fought to open them again and when he did, what he saw made him feel like the weight of a building had been dropped directly on his chest again.

_____

At first glance, Sharon didn’t even recognize him. But how could she? A nasal splint covered his nose and dark bruising spread like ink below both closed eyes. Both lips were split and swollen. Dim fluorescent lighting reflected off gaunt cheeks and his thin arms stuck out like toothpicks from the loose hospital gown. He was tightly tucked up to his chest in sheets and blankets and his hands looked more like polar bear paws. 

It was like looking at a stranger and feeling dejavu. Like she knew parts of what she was seeing, but couldn’t place all the pieces together.

She felt perverse for even being here, and for gawking at him while he was this vulnerable. The balls of her feet ready to turn and walk out, the sudden opening of big, doe-like brown eyes paralyzed her. Riley was instantly recognizable with his eyes, and it was as if the picture puzzle in her head assembled all at once.

“M-mom?” Sharon stopped breathing. She couldn’t move or even blink. Riley’s groggy eyes narrowed at her, but his face was slack and it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. 

“You came back…” He trailed off, as though he had run dry of energy before the end of his sentence. His wide eyes blinked heavily, as though the energy to keep them open had left him too. 

Sharon didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to say anything. If she was honest, she would shatter him in his already delicate state. If she faked it, she was setting him up for crushing disappointment later. Either way, the situation was damning for both of them.

She saw her out when his eyes lost their focus and began to drift. He would try to snap them back to focus, she saw, but they would drift with exhaustion moments later.

“Go back to sleep Riley.” His name still stuck on her tongue. Even saying it felt unearned.

Riley shook his head lethargically, but lost the battle at keeping his eyes open. 

“Don’ wanna go ta’ sleep.” Sharon’s stomach clenched in pity and discomfort as he tried to catch another glance at her, but couldn’t manage it. 

“Don’ want you ta’ leave ‘gain.” Any semblance of inner-composure shattered viscerally inside her, the shards slashing her insides as they fell to the pit of her stomach. 

Unable to fight against the power of her own maternal instincts, no matter how much she wished she could banish them in this particular instance, Sharon sat down in the reclining chair next to Riley’s bed. Her hand reached out to touch him, apparently of its own accord, but she caught herself before making contact.

“Get some sleep Riley.” Her voice had softened. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

This seemed to appease him as his body lost all its tension and his breathing evened out within seconds, letting her know that he was asleep.

_____

Hours later, when Riley opened his eyes again, lighter and lucid, the chair next to his bed was empty. His heart sank.

It must have been a dream. A good dream. But dreams don’t last. And dreams aren’t real.

He closed his eyes again, trying to recapture the image of his mother and the fleeting comfort it offered, but it was like trying to catch sand in outstretched fingers. Elusive. Impossible.

_____

“Geen plate Mama! Geen plate!” Chubby little hands smacked against the countertop. With a fond sigh, Sharon dumped the scrambled eggs from the problematic blue plate to the requested green plate for Andrew. The little boy squealed and delight, and though he continued playing with his food rather than eating it, he was no longer screaming his demands, so she counted it as a win.

“Mom, I’m done.” Matt pushed his mostly eaten plate of food toward her, a hair more polite than his little brother. She smiled and told him to brush his teeth and that he could play his X-Box until it was time to get dressed for school.

Loud echoes of squeaky clarinet notes bounced from the vaulted ceilings and Sharon, though not enjoying the music, was pleased that at least her daughter was practicing her required hours and not watching endless YouTube videos this morning.

It was subdued chaos. And Sharon wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Being back home and hopping back into the usual morning routine allowed her to pretend that nothing had changed. None of her children knew about the dark, dirty secret of their half-brother that lay in a hospital, soon to be brought home to interrupt their comfortable, picturesque domesticity. 

She wanted to keep them sheltered from it for a little longer. And if she kept herself sheltered from it as well… well then that could just be considered taking care of herself.

Sharon had left the hospital less than half an hour after Riley fell back asleep. She’d been unable to bear the awkwardness and discomfort of the situation any longer. The next time a nurse came in to change one of the IV bags, she’d stood up and mumbled that it was late and she needed to get home to her other kids.

Not actually a lie. Her husband had to be at work an hour earlier on Fridays to sign payroll checks, so she was fully responsible for getting their kids ready and out the door on those days. But at the same time, she was far from in a hurry to get back to the hospital, so the excuse was very convenient.

Her phone buzzed intrusively against the stark white countertop and she eyed the number. Hospital. Again. 

Grimacing, she pressed the ignore button.

They’d also called earlier, informing her that Riley was awake and asking when she was planning on returning. She’d replied that once she’d gotten her children off to school and daycare that she would come back. The nurse had taken her excuse at face value with a bright “Looking forward to seeing you this morning!” and hung up.

So Sharon was annoyed to see that they were calling back only two hours later. 

A voicemail icon popped up a minute later, which she dismissed with guilt crawling down her skin. She would get to him, she told herself with reassurance. But first, she had to take care of her kids.

And no, I’m not including Riley in that category.

Bracing herself against the counter with a heavy sigh, she closed her eyes and pushed the immense guilt down before turning back to her toddler.

“Okay Andy,” she cooed, reaching out to grab him. Chubby arms reached back at her and she picked him up. “Let’s get you ready for preschool, baby.” 

Sharon planted a kiss on top of his head, lingering for a second longer than usual.

_____

By the time the late morning sun was streaming into the wide window of his hospital room, Riley had stopped paying attention when he heard someone’s footsteps entering the threshold. And having grown up in an abusive house that required constant vigilance to avoid being beaten, ignoring approaching footsteps went wildly against his instincts.

When he had woken up this morning, clearer and lucid and had to swallow the difficult pill that what he’d thought had been his long-lost mother had been just a dream, any time someone came into his room, his head had snapped to attention. Foolish hope had leapt up in his chest as he hoped that his dream hadn’t been a dream, and that the arrival would be his mother, only to be harshly shoved back down when he saw his visitors.

And he’d had plenty of them.

After the nurse had been alerted to his waking, she’d called in the on-call doctor to discuss his injuries with him. When the doctor, tall with gray hair and glasses that perched on his crooked nose came in, face buried in Riley’s chart, the memories of what happened were still slowly filtering back into his headspace.

He remembered being beaten and stabbed to the floor. 

“STAY DOWN!”

He remembered his father wrestling a sweatshirt on him to hide his bloody hands.

“Don’t let anyone see your hands if you want to eat this week.”

And he remembered his critical and disappointed teacher chastising him for not having his assignment.

“This was not a difficult assignment Mr. Flanagan.”

Everything else was blank. And though his head was clearer and free from the fog of anesthetic, he still couldn’t understand why he was here and why he couldn’t use his hands. 

The doctor was helpful in filling in some of the missing pieces. He’d passed out at school from blood loss and dehydration and been taken by ambulance to the hospital. The second-hand embarrassment of passing out in front of his classmates turned his ears violently red.

Next, the doctor mentioned that the ER doctor that had examined him determined that Riley was in danger of losing movement and dexterity in both of his hands if the knife wounds weren’t repaired surgically. He had looked down at his heavily bandaged hands and tried to lift them to better see, but they felt heavy and he couldn’t raise them more than an inch before giving up.

The details about his broken nose being set and his ribs being wrapped weren’t interesting to Riley. He’d dealt with both by himself several times before. 

Then, the doctor had sat Riley’s chart down on the wheeled tray at the edge of his bed and taken his glasses off, concern contorting his facial features.

“The ER doctor also mentioned that you had a number of other wounds, all in different stages of healing.”

A long, tense moment crawled past.

“Now, you don’t have to talk about it with me, but we have reason to be concerned about your home situation…”

“I-I can’t talk about this.” He’d shook his head vehemently, looking anywhere but at the cotor.

Riley had only felt minimal relief when the man had nodded in grim understanding before leaving. 

After that, a nurse had come in to check his IV levels and ask about his pain levels. He remembered shrugging unhelpfully.

And before Riley could try to emotionally recover from the invasive questions from the doctor about his abuse, an even taller, bald police officer walked in, stated that his father had been arrested, and asked for a statement that he hadn’t been able to give in his shocked and upset state.

The officer had stuck around to question him for nearly ten minutes straight before a nurse asked him to come back later since he was still recovering from surgery. He’d stalked out with an unsympathetic promise to be back, but Riley couldn’t even be relieved that he was gone.

All he could think of was his father’s arrest and how his life had imploded spectacularly like a dying star.

So when the next set of footsteps padded into his room, this pair lighter and more tentative than the rest, Riley didn’t immediately look up from the fraying threads of the blanket on his lap. It wasn’t until he heard an insistent cough, meant to draw attention, that he looked up to see who was there.

And when he saw who it was, Riley’s world fell apart and fixed itself in the same moment.

“Mom?”

_____

The woman was unmistakably his mother, though she looked so incredibly different from the last time he saw her, and from the picture of her he’d tucked away before his father had removed all traces of her. 

She looked older. Which, of course she did, he scolded himself. It has been ten, no, eleven years since she left. Her hair was shorter than he remembered, falling just above her shoulders. And her face had more lines, but they were the kind of lines someone got from laughing a lot, not the ones from a life of fear and worry. Riley’s chest felt warm as he recognized his own features on her face; her eyes a deep chocolate brown, her nose shaped like his, and even the little cleft carved into her chin.

His father had always said he’d looked just like his mother, though in more crass and disparaging language.

Silence covered them like a deflated parachute. His mother didn’t look willing to speak. Her terse posture and crossed arms showed that she wasn’t comfortable either, but Riley was too in awe of her presence to notice.

“Mom. Y-you’re here.” 

“Yes, I’m here,” she said shortly.

”I- I thought you were… Were you here last night?” He couldn’t help the hopeful crescendo in his voice.

She nodded, “Yes.” Again, short. 

Tears prickled behind his eyes. “I thought you were a dream,” he admitted, more to himself.

“I had to leave and take care of some other things.” She offered coolly. And though her explanation was vague and unhelpful, Riley’s forgiveness was immediate.

“It’s okay, they had me pretty drugged up.” He said, trying to cut through the thick tension. “They still do.” He lightly laughed, but she didn’t share in it.

Riley gulped, starting to feel as awkward and uncomfortable as his mother looked. 

He had a million questions racing through his head, each one more important than the last, but the fog from his pain meds robbed him of his eloquence and intentions. 

“Um, what are you doing here?” He winced, inwardly scolding himself for the rudeness of his question. But his mom didn’t look shaken. She was an immovable statue of discomfort.

Riley almost thought she wasn’t going to answer, but after a few seconds that felt like minutes, she spoke.

“The police came to my house and said you were in surgery. They said you didn’t have…” she paused, looking away from his desperate gaze. “They said you were alone.”

The weight of his father’s arrest suddenly spread through his bones. It had barely been a few hours since he found out and the thought of it still sent destructive seismic waves through him.

“Yeah, um,” Riley bit his bottom lip to fight the onslaught of tears that threatened. “They arrested dad. Last night? Or yesterday? I, uh, everything’s still fuzzy.” He mumbled lamely. The explanation “for child abuse” hung heavy in the air like thick black smoke, but neither mentioned it.

The volatile topic of Keith Flanagan dialed up the awkwardness between them. Riley’s shoulders hunched with shame and his mom shifted her posture, clearly unnerved.

Heavy time ticked past between them as neither knew what to say. Riley couldn’t tell if it had been seconds, minutes, or even hours as the destructive force of his father tore through them.

The million questions Riley had for his mother still raced through his head, but only one mattered at this point. 

“What’s uh… wh-what’s gonna happen to me?” The stuttered words fell out of his mouth in a heap. 

For the first time, Riley met his mother’s brown eyes, trying to detect any warmth or kindness, but only seeing cold and dark reflections of his own eyes.

“Where am I going to go?” He couldn’t keep the misery from cracking his voice. The uncertainty of his situation was deafening and he wanted desperately to know what his future looked like. Whether foster care, or going to live with his mom, or… back with his dad? He snapped his eyes shut forcefully against the intrusiveness of the last possibility.

“You’re going to come live at my house, with my family.” 

He flinched at the harsh wording and detached tone, but the implication of what she said caught up to him and his heart took a free fall into his stomach. 

“...with my family.” She has a family. She left you for another family. A better family, obviously. You’re nothing Riley. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. No wonder she left.

He blinked furiously, trying to fight the onslaught of tears, but wet eyelashes let him know that he failed. 

“Oh, um, you have a family?” He asked, feigning innocent curiosity as though the question didn’t stomp violently on his already bruised heart. 

For the first time in their entire interaction, his mother’s eyes brightened and she shed her unease. She smiled widely and nodded.

“Yes. I have a husband, Brad. And we have three kids; our daughter, Audrey, and our two sons, Matt and Andrew.” Riley’s chest ached viciously at the pride that soaked every word. He had to look away as the battle against crying grew futile and hot tears fell down his face, dripping from his chin to his chest.

A decade before, when his young mind had finally understood that his mother had left and wasn’t coming back, Riley had thought that his mom just hadn’t wanted to be a parent. But now, it was painfully apparent that it wasn’t that she didn’t want to be a mom. She just hadn’t wanted to be Riley’s mom.

He had to shut his eyes against the misery and he tried to suppress his crying as it threatened to turn into high, keening whines. He took one, two, three shuddering breaths, trying to stop, to calm himself down. With how intensely that Keith hated crying, Riley had had plenty of practice subduing himself when he needed.

Once he’d quelled his crying and the tears were sitting on his eyes instead of falling down his face, he was able to look back at his mom. The warmth and pride she’d emanated while talking about her family was long gone.

This was not the tender, kind woman who’d loved him when he was a little boy. The woman who had kissed both of his cheeks every morning when he woke up, and every night before bed. The woman who called him “Ri” affectionately.

He tried to say something. Anything to break through the tension that blanketed them again. But he choked on every sad attempt. 

Stupid son of a bitch. Just like dad always said. You’re so desperate. It’s pathetic. She doesn’t love you. Not anymore. You’re worthless. So, so worthless.

Just as the tension turned to concrete, a hospital worker walked in, completely unaware of the nightmare of a reunion she was interrupting. 

“Alrighty, your doctor has cleared you for solid foods, so I brought some lunch for you.” She sat the food on the tray and pushed it up so it was closer to him. The bland smell of boiled chicken and some sort of vegetable wafted up, and even though he hadn’t eaten in, well, close to two days he guessed, he didn’t feel hungry for it.

“And since your mom is here, she can help you eat it.” She turned toward Sharon, apparently oblivious to his mother’s immense discomfort. “Start with small bites, cut up the chicken for him, and make sure he gets plenty to drink,” she instructed before telling both of them to call a nurse if they needed anything else.

The moment she was gone, the atmosphere in the room turned to lead. 

Two things became apparent to Riley as his eyes shifted between his mom and the tray of food. He wasn’t going to ask, and she wasn’t going to offer.


	3. Outsider

Sharon left the hospital exhausted, and with a heavy heart. Emotionally, she was burnt out, and physically, she felt ready to drop. The reunion with her oldest son, however brief, had been incredibly demanding, and once she got back to her car, she sat in the driver’s seat with her eyes closed and hands on the steering wheel for ten minutes before feeling recovered enough to drive home.

She felt bad for making Riley cry. No matter how detached she was determined to remain from him, it hurt her to see him cry when he realized she had a family. 

And then there had been the situation with the food. That had been awkward and painful for both of them. Though he was helpless to feed himself, his hands wrapped generously with gauze and an IV in the crook of his arm, he hadn’t asked her for help. And she hadn’t been able to bring herself to offer.

She’d only lasted another minute in the hospital room under those conditions before she left, telling Riley that she had to go pick up her son from preschool. Which, not entirely a lie, she reasoned. Andrew’s pick up time wasn’t for another hour.

The rest of the day, Sharon was emotionally spent and just running through the motions. The guilt ate at her when she found herself unable to control her stress around her children. Andrew had screamed the entire drive home from preschool because he didn’t want to leave the dinosaur toys (it didn’t matter that they had a sizable dino toy collection at home.) That grated her nerves down even further. 

By the time she had picked up Matt, having to sign his failed spelling test that he told her he studied for made her snap and ground him from his weekend sleepover. Matt had stewed quietly in the backseat all the way home. She thought she caught sight of welling tears when she looked in the rearview mirror at a red light, but by the time they were in the garage she didn’t see any traces of crying. Just a moody, upset nine-year-old boy.

And then Audrey had come home, dropped off by her friend’s mom, declaring that she wanted to quit the clarinet. The argument that ensued between them had been one for the record books, and it had only ceased when Brad got home from work and played mediator. Audrey stomped up to her room and slammed her door, which upset Andrew who was coloring in the living room. 

When he started to cry, so did Sharon.

She put her head in her hands and wept, the stress that had started the day before when a police officer showed up finally catching up with her. 

Brad calmed down their youngest son before talking to Matt about why he failed his spelling test. 

Her own tears were calming down when she felt a heavy, comforting hand on her shoulder and heard a clink as Brad sat a glass of red wine in front of her.

“So I take it that seeing Riley didn’t go well?” 

Her sigh released all of the day’s stress and upset. Just being around her husband made her feel better than she had all day.

“Well, I saw him for maybe 20 minutes. He asked what was going to happen to him. I told him he was coming to live with us, and he cried when I told him about you guys.” Sharon took a generous drink of her wine before setting it down and making a self-deprecating scoff. “Oh, and then some nurse asked me to feed him, and that went over great since he was still crying. I couldn’t do it so I just left.” The alcohol burned the back of her throat, but she took another sip before saying, “I’m pretty sure we hate each other.”

Brad pulled out a chair at their dining room table for her, and she practically collapsed in it. He sat in the one next to her and took her hand comfortingly.

“Honey, you don’t hate him.”

“No, I don’t.” She acquiesced. “I just hate the idea of him. I hate that all of the pain that I left behind is being dug up and I have to see a reminder of it every day.” She didn’t know when she started sobbing, but Brad brought her in for a hug and tucked her head under his chin, kissing the top of her head.

“I hate that Keith lied and hurt him. And it feels like my fault that Riley’s there.” 

She continued to cry into her husband’s chest, and he rocked her until she calmed down. Sniffling, she pulled away and wiped her eyes.

“It isn’t your fault that he’s in the hospital sweetheart. That’s completely on Keith. I don’t know what that son of a bitch did, but nothing about this is your fault.” His calm, commanding voice was grounding for her. It had been since she was a young mom getting ready to leave her abusive partner behind and start anew.

“I left him there, and I knew what Keith was like.” She refuted, feeling swallowed by the tidal wave of guilt.

“He promised that he wouldn’t touch Riley. And he was going to leave us alone and let us have our life. That was the agreement. We talked in circles about this for ages back then, and at the end of every talk, we decided that this was for the best. Riley would still have a parent, and we would be safe to start our life.” Sharon remembered the stressful discussions vividly. “And you were already pregnant with Audrey. If he had found out about her, no one would have been safe. You did the best you could in a terrible situation honey.”

Sharon considered Brad’s words, and the logic behind them. It was true that if Keith had found out that she was pregnant back then that he would have never stopped trying to hurt her and her family, no matter the consequences. They never would have been safe. So in that respect, she had done the right thing and felt at peace with her choice. But it had all come at the cost of Riley and his childhood. 

Sharon had no idea what the extent of the abuse was, but Riley’s thin, gaunt appearance and the severity of the wounds he was in the hospital for, she couldn’t imagine that it didn’t stretch back several years.

She couldn’t hold back the next wave of tears and Brad held her once more.

“Sharon…” He began cautiously once she was calm enough to speak again. “Have you considered not taking him? Letting him go into foster care? This is just dragging up so many painful things for you, and I don’t want you to go through something you don’t have to.” 

Sharon smiled, eternally grateful for Brad’s compassion and care. But she knew the situation wasn’t as simple as not agreeing to take him home.

She pulled away from him and reached for her wine again, this time draining the rest of the glass in one go.

“Of course I considered it. It was the first thing I asked Child Services when I got to the hospital last night.” She recalled the woman’s biting tone and judgemental stare with a sick feeling. “She said that I still have parental rights, and since I am a suitable parent that signing away my rights would open us up to charges and investigations. Especially considering his current state. She basically threatened me, but I called our lawyer this morning, and he corroborated what she said.”

“We don’t have a choice. We have to bring Riley home.” Sharon felt a detached finality in her statement. She felt trapped, forced into another decision that she didn’t want to make. 

“Then we will bring him home.” Her husband said, hugging her tighter. 

Sharon wasn’t sure if the sick feeling in her stomach was alcohol or foreboding.

_____

Riley was alone in his hospital room for the rest of that day, through the night, and well into the next morning. After his mom had abruptly left yesterday with a hurried excuse of picking up someone from somewhere, she hadn’t been back. 

The nurses on shift kept asking him about when she would be returning, and the nurse who had checked on him to make sure that his lunch was settling without had been especially concerned when she saw him all by himself, staring at an untouched tray of food, unable to eat it even if he’d wanted to.

When she’d asked about where his mom had gone and why she hadn’t helped him eat, hot humiliation blasted through him. He was too ashamed to tell her that his mom had left because he wasn’t important. And that he didn’t even know if she was even coming back…

“Oh, um, she had to go take care of my little brother. I- uh-, fell asleep after she left, so that’s why I didn’t eat yet.”

The lie had rolled off his tongue with practiced ease. You didn’t grow up in an abusive and neglectful household without becoming skillful in the art of lying. He’d been making excuses for years to cover up for the marks and limps Keith left him with when he was around, and for his absence from events that required or encouraged a parent to attend when he would leave for weeks at a time. 

So making excuses for his mom’s absence came naturally when she didn’t come back that afternoon. Or that evening when his dinner was delivered and a nurse asked if he had anyone to help him eat. 

“My little brothers and sister keep her really busy. She told me she would be back as soon as she could.”

“She got called into work. She works for a charity and they just got a really big donation, so she’s helping people. I don’t mind.”

“She told me these chairs hurt her back to sleep in, so she went home to go to bed. She’ll be back in the morning.

Each time he had to spout out an excuse, it was to a different nurse, so no one bothered questioning why he’d been utterly alone for nearly an entire day.

He tried not to think about how depressing it was that he fell so easily into the habit of lying for both of his parents to hide how they treated him like garbage. 

The truth was just too hard to swallow. And other people’s pity when they realized how little he meant to his parents was humiliating. And the lies helped bring him a semblance of comfort sometimes if he made himself believe them.

Dad being busy at the car dealership was easier to think about than the fact that he’d left three weeks ago and Riley had run out of food, and the lights got turned off, and he was scared that no one would ever come back for him. Being hit in the face with a baseball while playing catch with his dad was a lot easier to stomach than having his lights punched out because the fridge was out of beer. 

The situation of covering for his mom started to get dicey, however, when his doctor came around to check on how his injuries were healing and started talking about his discharge. About sending him home. 

“Your mom will need to sign some forms so we can get you home. I also need to speak with her about your discharge instructions. The nurses will need to show her how to change your bandages, and they will need to go over your prescriptions.” His doctor looked up from the chart he’d been reading over. “Do you know when she’ll be back?” He asked expectantly.

Riley swallowed roughly, trying to formulate a lie that would line up with the last one he told. But it was hard. The small tendril of fear that she just wouldn’t come back, and that he’d ruined everything had grown into a thick, intrusive root that coiled around his stomach.

At what point would his card house of lies fall down around him and everyone would realize that no one was coming back for him. That he’d been abandoned. Again.

“Um… I’ll ask my nurse to help me give her a call.” He said, a little too quietly. “I think she’s planning on coming later.” It was lame and unconvincing, but Riley was tired. And heartbroken. 

The doctor looked skeptical, but he nodded and hemmed in acceptance. 

“I know the head nurse has her number, so I’ll ask her to call. I’d like to get you out of here so you can rest at home in your own bed.”

Riley didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or cry at how far off and ridiculous that notion was for him. He coughed to cover up the tears that welled up and looked away. 

“Thanks,” he choked out and his doctor nodded cordially and left, leaving Riley alone to the swell of depression. He’d been treading through it, but now he was sinking lower, the waves lapping at his chin and threatening to take him under.

_____

If Sharon had thought the initial reunion with her son and the lunch situation had been awkward, when the time came to actually take him home from the hospital, it was nearly unbearable. 

She stood next to her husband in Riley’s hospital room, barely hearing what the balding doctor was telling them. She was far too distracted by the drastic swerve her life had taken and the feeling of her past closing in on her. Well, in reality, it had closed in, and it was sitting in a hospital bed with glassy eyes that eyed her and Brad with weary curiosity.

She snapped her attention back to the doctor, hoping that Brad had been listening to everything she’d missed in her nervous state. 

“His hands are still going to be wrapped up like that for about two weeks. Then we will have you guys come back in to check how the wounds are healing and put on some braces that allow for movement. We might get him started on physical therapy at that point too. But until then, he doesn’t have use of his hands and he will need help with just about everything. Eating, drinking, brushing his teeth, maybe even using the restroom.”

Sharon saw Riley’s cheeks flush like a tomato and she looked away, more for her own embarrassment than his.

“He’s going to be on some pretty heavy painkillers for awhile too, so he will probably be drowsy and woozy until that prescription runs out. But he needs to be stationary for another week anyway to keep his ribs healing quickly.”

Sharon blinked blankly. She hadn’t even known that there was a problem with his ribs. She thought the hands and the nose were the extent of his physical injuries. It occurred to her that she didn’t even know what actually happened to him. After she found out that Keith had abused him, she’d stopped wondering what specifically put him in the hospital, so injured that he required surgery.

“Be sure to keep his bandages dry during bathing. I’d suggest either wrapping them up and helping him wash in the tub or shower, or washing his hair over the sink and using a wet rag for the rest.”

Sharon was rapidly becoming overwhelmed as the doctor mentioned responsibility after responsibility and all the things that Riley just couldn’t do. It wasn’t just that she was bringing home a teenager that she had abandoned a decade earlier, she was bringing home an invalid that would need near constant care. And the relationship between her and that invalid could be described as awkward and estranged at best.

Peeking another glance at Riley, he looked about as pleased about the situation as she did, his face still violently red with embarrassment, and a stricken look of horror plastered across his face.

“...did the nurse show you how to change his bandages before I got here?” 

Sharon whipped her head back to attention, hardly aware of what had been asked. Brad interjected that they had, and the doctor made another check on his chart.

“Okay, that about sums up his discharge. At this point we just need you to sign some forms and get him dressed, and then we can get you folks on your way.”

Sharon was both relieved that she could relax the act she felt like she was performing whenever someone saw her as Riley’s mother, and an intense dread at taking Riley home and being responsible for him.

She signed the forms placed in front of her and then suddenly, the three of them were alone. The air was heavy with the weight of painful history. 

Riley’s eyes were heavily lidded and he looked about as scared as she felt. 

“We didn’t know what you had, so we brought you some clothes. Just some of my old stuff.” Brad, ever the neutral party, stepped forward with a small bag. Sharon felt sick as Riley flinched and fear turned his brown eyes dark. 

“Riley, this is my husband Brad.” She offered, shaken by his reaction to her husband. Brad raised the hand without the bag in a friendly wave and said a friendly “Hello Riley.”

And Riley, eyeing him with tense vigilance croaked out his own mumbled “hi.” 

“Why don’t you get dressed and then we can get home.” She checked her watch, looking anywhere but at her son, and then, talking more to Brad, said “We only have the babysitter until five.”

Brad set the bag of clothes on the bed and Sharon grabbed his hand and turned to leave Riley to his privacy, but a nervous cough made her turn back around.

“I, uh,-” He tried to laugh, couldn’t manage it, so he turned it into a cough. “I need some help to get dressed.” He held up the bandaged hands that resembled paws. His voice was bare with disdain and humiliation, and Sharon could tell that if he had any other options, he wouldn’t have asked.

Sharon’s stomach dropped, feeling nowhere near ready for the intimacy required to change her son’s clothes. And she wouldn’t put that burden on her husband either. 

“I’ll get a nurse.” Sharon offered, cool and decisive.

_____

Exhaustion settled deep in Riley’s bones on the drive home from the hospital. The switch to oral painkillers, the tiredness from leaving the hospital, seeing his mom again and meeting her husband, the white noise of the highway; all of it together pushed him toward the edge of falling asleep in the backseat of his mother’s car. Or was it Brad’s? Brad was driving, but… Riley’s mind strayed toward deliriousness, but the immense discomfort and awkwardness of the car ride refused to let him fully rest.

He tried to shake the sleepiness off by jerking his head from side to side. A deep, impossibly long yawn that agitated his healing nose and ribs was his body’s response, much to his frustration.

The car ride was mostly silent, the radio turned off, whether by habit or conscious choice, he didn’t know. His mom and her husband traded idle chit chat on occasion about things to add to the grocery list (apparently Matthew wanted to eat ham instead of turkey next week), and various commitments and upcoming practices (Audrey had a recital for something and Andrew had swimming lessons starting Tuesday). 

It was all incredibly mundane and domestic, but at the same time, fascinating to Riley, who had little exposure to a normal household. It also offered him a slice of the life that went on without him. The life that his mother had chosen over him. 

Through watery, heavy-lidded eyes, he watched them, their normalcy as confusing as it was captivating.

The scenery changed and became more suburban, the houses getting larger and more ornate and the amenities more luxurious; a far cry from the dingy, beat-down neighborhood where he’d grown up. The only store close enough for a little kid to walk to was a 7-11 that was robbed so much that a police officer was permanently stationed there.

Brad slowed down and turned into the gated community on the right, stopping long enough for the black, wrought iron gate to swing open slowly. Just as they drove through, his mom turned around and addressed him for the first time since the hospital.

“Riley, now I’m not sure what kind of rules your father had for you…” He gasped like he’d taken a fist to the stomach. Didn’t she know about the abuse? Was she being cruel? 

The only rules in his household growing up were to not let the fridge run out of beer and to stay out of his dad’s way when he was drunk.

And to stay down when you’re told to stay down. But that rule was new.

“But you’re going to be following our rules while you’re living in our house.” Riley flinched at the emphasis that the home he was going to live in was not his own. He understood the undertone that he was not welcome. He was an outsider.

He nodded, gnawing his bottom lip between his teeth, tasting the tang of his healing skin.

“I know you come from a violent background.” At this point, Riley lost all doubt about whether her cruelty was purposeful. He felt the familiar ache behind his eyes and tightness in the back of his throat that signaled crying. He didn’t want to cry again.

I come from a violent background because you left me in a violent background.

“But if I see any of your violent influence rubbing off on our children, we will not hesitate to show you the door.” Riley couldn’t breathe through the horrible lump in his throat. “Do you understand?” His mom was looking at him pointedly, harsh enunciation shaping every word.

Swallowing back the heaving sobs that wanted to wrack his body, he nodded his assent. 

Riley bit his lip harder and harder until the skin broke and blood flowed, feeling familiar on his tongue. He savored the familiarity. If he focused on that, he didn’t have to focus on the pain that threatened to smother him.

When they pulled into the driveway of their home, Riley didn’t watch with awed curiosity. His eyes were squeezed tight against hot tears and the harsh sting of knowing how his mother truly felt about him.

You’re nothing Riley Flanagan. So, so worthless. Unwanted. Unloved. You’re nobody.

_____

Meeting his siblings was a surreal experience for Riley. Considering that he hadn’t even known of their existence before yesterday, he had no idea how to react being around three people who shared the same mother as him. 

“Audrey, Matthew, Andrew, this is your older brother, Riley.”

As his mom introduced him to his brothers and sister with all the warmth and enthusiasm of a driver’s bureau employee, he felt like a piece of livestock on display at the state fair. He averted his eyes to the white ceramic floor to avoid their gawking stares.

“What’s wrong with his hands?” The older boy, Matthew, he thought, was the first to respond to Sharon’s awkward introduction.

“Matt, that’s rude.” Brad criticized, swatting the kid lightly on the shoulder.

“Why didn’t you ever tell us about him before?” Audrey sniped at Sharon, who snapped back with a hushed “Not now!” that he wasn’t supposed to hear.

Riley shifted on his feet, trying to dry swallow the pill of unease and hurt. Audrey’s question confirmed his haunting suspicion that his mother had refused to even acknowledge his existence after she left him. The nasty feeling of worthlessness settled further into his bones. Of course she hadn’t told anyone about him. Why would she? He wasn’t worth anything and that was the way it always had been and always would be.

The upset crying of a toddler drew everyone’s attention. Riley saw his youngest brother eyeing him with complete terror. Realistically, he understood that he was a total stranger and that most toddlers would react this way to a strange person, but he couldn’t help the stinging feeling that no one, not even the youngest of the family wanted him here.

“Okay guys,” Brad’s authoritative voice echoed against the high cabinets. Riley tried not to shiver. “Let’s get some pizza for dinner tonight.” Matt whooped in excitement. “Audrey, find out what everyone wants and I’ll call the order in.”

The focus shifted away from Riley and the family members went back to what they were doing before his intrusive presence arrived. He stood still and tucked his chin into his chest, the passive stance his father expected out of him for the majority of his life and had beaten into him with severity.

Though his exhaustion was wearing him further down by the second, he didn’t move. It must have been several minutes of struggling to stay awake on his feet before anyone in the family acknowledged his existence again.

Three finger snaps took his eyelids from fluttering shut to snapped wide open in terror. 

“...Riley.” It was Brad who had snapped his fingers at him. And though his voice was not unkind, Riley couldn’t help it when he felt his body cowering.

“What kind of pizza do you like?” Trying to be respectful, he leveled his eyes at Brad and gave the barest, tight-lipped smile he could muster.

“I’m not hungry. Thank you.” A lie. He hadn’t eaten much in the hospital, too miffed at the indignity at being fed by nurses with pity carved into their faces. And he’d been in a significant food deficit when he’d gone into the hospital as well. He was on day two of his father’s punishment of starvation for not paying the electric bill in time and letting the lights go out for a day when his father had beaten and stabbed him into submission.

But between the familiar, if unpleasant feeling of sustained hunger versus the painful awkwardness that would come from someone having to feed him, and the distinct feeling of being unwelcome, he would take hunger right now. 

Brad raised an eyebrow at him. Behind him, Riley could see his mom tending to her other two sons, the warm smile that had been the bright spot of his childhood gleaming at them. He noticed with a sharp stab to his stomach that she seemed to look at anyone except him that way.

The unpleasant thought upset him more than he expected. And the tightness in the back of his throat returned. Riley didn’t want to cry for a third time in front of his mom, so he forcefully swallowed the tight feeling and looked back at Brad.

“Um, if you don’t mind, I’m, uh, really tired. Can I go lay down?” Asking the question felt about as natural as swimming in a fur coat, but Riley had to improvise at this point if he wanted to avoid a total breakdown. The exhaustion was taking its toll on his emotional stronghold and he could feel the quivering of his lip as he fought back yet another round of tears.

“Sure kid.” Brad eyed him suspiciously, but Riley appreciated that the man didn’t try to interrogate him further.

“Sharon, hon?” It took another two tries to get her attention before she would look up from her youngest child. Riley thought he saw her glance over the first time and then ignore her husband when she saw what was going on, but his fatigued mind could have been playing tricks.

“Where is Riley going to sleep?” Embarrassed heat crept across his cheeks. He felt like an unwanted burden that had been unexpectedly foisted upon this happy family. It was clear that his presence wasn’t planned.

Sharon spared a moment’s glance back at him, and he felt the frigidness in his stomach. 

“I think the guest bedroom is ready.” She immediately went back to Andrew, looking at a picture book with him and cheering with excitement when he would point a chubby finger and say what he saw. 

Riley assumed he should follow Brad when the man walked at a fast clip toward the staircase. He couldn’t help but to stare at his mom as he walked by, and he wondered if he made her uncomfortable. Was she purposefully ignoring him or was she just that uninterested in him being there? Riley didn’t think it mattered, because both options hurt.

This wasn’t how he dreamed that being with his mom would be like. But when did Riley ever actually get what he wanted?

_____

The room was nice, if not plain. A typical guest room in a suburban house, not that Riley had much to compare to, but it was the nicest place that had ever been offered to him.

Brad had shown him the room and then awkwardly asked if he needed anything. Riley had shaken his head that he didn’t, even though he didn’t have a single possession with him. He didn’t even have a toothbrush, not that he could use one with the state of his hands. 

“Alright, holler if you need anything,” Brad had said before leaving, closing the door behind him.

Blessedly alone, Riley sat on the solid navy comforter. It was soft. Softer than anything he’d slept on in, well, probably ever. And the bed was the right amount of firm. Not thin enough that the worn out springs poked through the fabric. He laid back on the bed and let the exhaustion take hold.

A small shiver worked its way up from his spine, and he wanted to pull back the blankets, climb in, and cocoon himself, but he was disappointed again when he couldn’t grip the fabric under the constraints of his bandages. 

Riley gave up and curled up on top of the blanket instead. His body going limp, he invited the respite of sleep. 

But through the exhausted fog, he could still hear the echoes of the happy family… his mom’s happy family, enjoying themselves and not concerned for a moment about him.

As it should be.


	4. Disdain

Sharon would never admit to the relief that she felt when Riley spent the remainder of Saturday evening and the entirety of Sunday in bed with the door closed. His presence was more of a non-presence, a spectre that existed in the back of her mind, but that she didn’t have to outwardly acknowledge as she resumed her normal Sunday routine with her family.

The doctor had warned them that he would be extremely drowsy, with the surgery recovery and the heavy-duty painkillers they had prescribed him. 

His sleep afforded her the ability to not think about him aside from the six-hour intervals when she had to give him his next dose of medications. And if also let her feel minimal guilt for pretending he didn’t exist outside of those intervals. 

Being honest with herself, she needed the time between giving him doses, because the task was an emotional tidal wave.

The first time, it had taken her nearly an hour to even work up to it. The orange pill bottle clutched in her hand and a cup of water had never felt so intimidating. Glancing at the clock on the oven, she grimaced at knowing she was an hour past the doctor’s prescribed schedule, but there hadn’t been any sound, complaint or otherwise coming from the guest room, so it was easy to keep putting off.

It was her own guilt that finally spurred her on in the end. She closed her eyes and pretended that Riley was Audrey or Matthew needing their medications. And then the guilt bowled her over so intensely that she had to brace herself against the counter.

You’re pretending he’s one of your kids to convince yourself to take care of him?

It felt like a new low for her in parenting. And not the fun kind of low, like giving Andy a hotdog for breakfast because it is all he’ll eat. No, this was the depressing kind of low.

The low where you can’t even give your helpless son his pain meds because you’d prefer to keep on pretending that he doesn’t exist.

With a self-assuring huff, Sharon grabbed the pill bottle and the cup of water and made her way to the guest bedroom. Determined, she didn’t let herself hesitate when she knocked on the door and pressed her ear up to it, listening for a response. When all she heard was silence, she opened the door.

The room was dark, with slices of moonlight cutting through the blinds. All in all, it looked untouched aside from the silhouette that laid atop of the bed, over the blankets, strangely enough.

He looked peaceful. 

She wanted to leave, so as to not interrupt that peacefulness, but the pill bottle felt suddenly like a stone in her hand.

Setting the cup and the bottle on the dresser next to the doorway, she turned on the lamp and the room came alight with a dim glow. 

Riley’s forehead creased and his eyebrows furrowed in response, though his eyes didn’t open. In the light, she could see him better. He was asleep on his side with both of his arms askew in front of him. The bandages were stark white against the lamp’s warm light.

She stood still as a statue, hesitant on waking him up when she heard a low groan from him and saw his eyes flicker open drowsily. 

Sharon was flung into a swell of nostalgia. His sleepy pout so much resembling that of when he was a little boy she had to wake up for breakfast. The little boy that used to look at her like it was solely her doing that made the sun rise each and every day. 

_“Don’t look at me like that Ri.” She grinned at his creased forehead and protruding lower lip. His brown eyes were big and sad. Smoothing the wild curls on top of her son’s head, Sharon watched as his pout morphed into a bright smile, eyes gleaming with admiration for her. She leaned down and planted two light kisses, one on each cheek._

_“Mommy, I was sleeping.” He groused, rubbing his eyes with balled up hands and yawning. She pulled back his superhero sheets and Riley started wriggling around on the bed, kicking his socked feet out in search of his blankets._

_“Well, I thought that someone might want to help make his favorite breakfast, but if he wants to sleep instead, then I guess he can have some Raisin Bran later…” She said mockingly, pretending like she was walking away._

_The head of curls perked up like a meerkat at the mention of his favorite breakfast._

_“French toast Mommy?” He lost all signs of sleepiness. Riley’s face was the picture of hope and optimism and she couldn’t help but beam back at him._

“Only if you get out of bed and help.” He was out of bed and running past her into the kitchen before she finished her sentence.

“I’m up Mommy!”

This time, when Riley’s sleepy eyes focused on her and the confusion turned to recognition, Sharon saw him shrink back, looking wearily at her presence. It stung, the difference in the way he looked at her now. He looked so similar to how he did when he was a little boy, but where she used to see admiration shining in his chocolate eyes, she saw hardness and fear. 

“Riley, you need to take your medicine.” 

He watched her like a cornered animal as she approached with a pill and the water. The battle between disorientation and trepidation played out on his face. 

Sharon went to hand him the pill before pausing when she realized that he had no way to grab it.

“Open up.” The kindness sounded forced, even to her own ears, but he complied. She put the pill in his mouth carefully, cognisant of the broken nose and split lips, and held the water up so he could take a drink. He took several big gulps, rivulets spilling out the sides of the glass and down his neck before pulling away and resting his head back on the pillow, fatigue clearly winning out over any hurt feelings he had toward her or discomfort at the dampness of his shirt collar.

She left the water on the bedside table, too distracted to even consider that he couldn’t drink it by himself and turned to leave, switching off the lamp.

Since Riley looked to be back asleep, Sharon slid out of the room without a word.

She didn’t hear the raspy, whispered, “Mom, ‘m cold” before the door clicked shut and she hurried down the hall, putting as much distance as she could between them.

_____

Confusion clouded Riley’s head when he woke up. The white ceiling and ornate ceiling fan were unfamiliar. The plush bedding and soft pillow weren’t what he was used to. And it was quiet. Birds chirping instead of machines beeping. Soft voices instead of heavy footfalls. This wasn’t the hospital, nor his father’s house. He didn’t know where he was.

Riley tried to blink the sleep from his eyes, and he flinched when he tried to rub them with his hands and instead hit his face with the bulky, bandaged appendages. 

Seeing his injured hands, the memories flooded back in a cold rush. He was in his mother’s house. His father had been arrested. He was living with his mom’s new family. Her husband and three kids. 

Fuzzy recollections of his mom coming into the room to give him pills populated, but he couldn’t recall specifics, like how many times she’d visited or if they’d exchanged any words. Sitting up in the bed, he looked down at himself and saw that he was still wearing the same borrowed clothing that he’d worn home from the hospital. 

He had no way to know how long he’d been cycling between asleep and lying awake in a drugged daze. Had it been hours? Days? The hungry pit in his stomach wasn’t a reliable source, but his intense thirst hinted that it had been awhile.

“Mom! Matt took my headphones!” 

Riley flinched and nearly fell backward on the bed, startled at the shrill voice that pierced the closed door.

“No I didn’t!”

“Yes you did you crap face!

“Audrey! Don’t call your brother names! Matt, give back Audrey’s headphones!”

“But Mom, these are mine!”

“No they aren’t Matthew. You told me you hate orange, remember?”

“Ugh, fine! Here are your stupid headphones.”

The animated argument sounded like it came from the hallway outside his door, but his mom’s voice sounded farther away. Two sets of heavy footsteps bounding down the staircase after each other, followed by silence, let him know that he was alone.

What should he do? He didn’t know. Was he supposed to wait here for someone to come check on him? Was he even allowed to leave? The uncertainty was crippling, but the debilitation thirst and hunger were getting the better of him.

His throat was dry and scratchy, and the glass of water on the bedside table mocked him with its inaccessibility. And the last full meal he’d eaten? Well that was a few days before he’d gone into the hospital.

Trudging through his nerves, he gathered a few scraps of courage and decided to leave the protective cocoon of the guestroom. 

Legs trembling, whether from disuse or low blood sugar, he wasn’t sure, Riley slowly opened the door and peeked his head into the hallway cautiously.

Empty. 

To say the house was large was an understatement. Riley feared getting lost. He tried to recall following Brad and how he’d gotten here, but came up blank. His head was still too groggy from whatever the doctor prescribed him. Gulping down the urge to flee back to the safety of his bed, he shuffled his socked feet down the hall until he found the stairs. 

Unable to use the thick oak railing, he took the steps one by one, carefully watching his feet and trying not to trip over his uneasiness.

After that, finding the kitchen was easy. He just had to follow the echoes of Audrey and Matt’s prolonged argument.

“Mom, can you tell Matt that he’s not allowed to come into my room when Amy comes over to work on our project tomorrow? He’s such a little creep!”

“Hey!”

“If you two don’t stop arguing, I’m going to—” Sharon’s voice stopped short as soon as she caught sight of him.

The argument between the siblings died out as well when they followed their mom’s eyeline to him. The only one who didn’t care about his sudden appearance was Andy, who threw slices of bananas and cheerios on the floor with gusto.

The sudden silence that blanketed the kitchen was deafening for Riley. He wanted the fancy tiles to open up and swallow him. He wanted to turn around and leave, but he knew the signs of dangerously low-blood sugar, and his thirst had him desperate for water, damn the consequences.

“C-can I h-have something t-to eat a-and drink?” He cringed against his raspy stuttering. “P-lease.” He appended.

Sharon looked away from him sharply, busying herself with her purse and grimacing at the mess the toddler had made on the floor. 

“I can get you something to drink,” her voice wasn’t necessarily cool, but it certainly wasn’t warm. “But I need to get Andy to preschool so you’re going to have to wait for breakfast.” 

Riley clenched his jaw, disappointed but not surprised. He was accustomed to not being anyone’s first priority. 

“Matt, Audrey, the bus will be here any second. Don’t miss it.” Sharon ordered, grabbing a glass from one of the cabinets. The two kids obediently grabbed their backpacks and hurried to the front door. Clipped “Ow” and “Hey” could be heard before the sound of the bus pulling up outside muffled them.

A glass of tap water with a straw was placed on the countertop. Riley looked to his mom nervously for assurance that it was for him and was met with an exasperated arch of her eyebrows.

Not wanting to annoy her any further, he clumsily made his way onto the tall chair and immediately took a long draw from the straw. His thirst being sated was near euphoric and the cup was empty in less than a minute.

Looking up from the empty cup Riley noticed his mother heading toward the door, purse slung over her shoulder, keys in one hand and Andy’s chubby hand in the other. 

Just before she was gone, she paused and looked back at him. Brown eyes met their twin before Sharon broke the contact and walked back to the counter, refilling his cup before sitting it back in front of him.

“I’ll be back for breakfast after I drop him off at preschool.” He nodded, though she and Andy were halfway out the door wouldn’t have seen him.

He sipped at his water again, with less urgency this time. 

Once the muffled sound of the garage door and the departing car cleared, the house was so silent that Riley could hear the high pitch of his brain. 

He sat there, still and silent, heavy hands folded in his lap, too afraid to move and break the delicate silence. Too afraid to do something wrong. 

_____

Sharon was quick to drop Andy off at preschool. 

Then faced with the prospect of going home and being alone with her oldest son, of taking care of him, she decided to go to the bank.

And then the Homegoods store.

And then the post office. 

And then the grocery store.  
Each additional stop, she shoved thoughts of Riley further and further to the back of her mind until he was nothing more than a chore to be taken care of at a later time.

Her guilt got the best of her, however, when a friend texted her asking if she wanted to go run for a few miles in the park and reflexively, she typed “Sure, just need to go change. See you in 30?”

But then, Riley’s shy and fearful face flashed behind her eyes. His stuttered words echoed in her ears. He was hungry. And she said she would be back. It had been nearly two hours since she left at this point. Surely he would have just gotten tired of waiting and gone back to bed?

Agitated by the guilt, she erased her message and wrote that she had to take a raincheck. 

It was past time to take responsibility for her son.

_____

_She said she’s coming back. She will be back. Stop being stupid. Don’t freak out and be an idiot just because you have to wait. She SAID she would be back. She didn’t leave you here to starve. She’s coming back._

Riley fought valiantly against his intrusive inner voice, but the longer that he waited at the kitchen island, the louder the voice grew and the flimsier his defenses became. 

His cup of water was long empty, and though his thirst was mostly slaked, it did nothing to calm the worsening pit of hunger that made its presence more known by each creeping minute. 

It was a funny phenomenon, Riley had always thought, growing up with food not being a secure commodity in his life. Just the simple promise of food would make him hungrier. Knowing when the hunger was supposed to end only made it harder to wait. But when he didn’t know where or when his next meal would come, he was able to push it back for awhile until it became extreme enough to make him do something about it.

Riley thought that a preschool drop off would take around half an hour, maybe 45 minutes depending on where the school was located. Even when a full hour had gone by, he was forgiving, telling himself that traffic must be bad. Or maybe his mom needed to stop for gas. 

_She didn’t leave you here to starve. She didn’t leave you here to starve. She wouldn’t just abandon you again._

__

__

_Wouldn’t she? She left you on the first day of Kindergarten, Riley. Don’t you remember waiting after school? Seeing all the other kids being picked up by their mommies and daddies and wondering where your parents were? Why did no one come for you? It was HOURS before your dad finally came to pick you up. And by then, your mommy was long gone._

By the time an hour and a half passed, Riley’s morale took a nosedive. His abandonment issues came home to roost and he couldn’t help the familiar fear that blanketed him and that told him that no one was ever coming back for him. That he wasn’t worth coming back for. 

The low mechanical whir of the garage door startled him. He snapped his head attention when the door opened and his mom swept in, reusable grocery bags in each hand.

“Sorry I’m late. I forgot that I hadn’t picked up anything for dinner tonight.” She wasn’t looking at him as she spoke, busy unpacking and putting away the groceries. 

He tried to eke out an “It’s okay,” but he choked on it. 

“What did you want to eat?” His mom asked, facing the cabinets, opening and closing them as she placed various food items inside. “You should probably have something easy on your stomach… how about cereal?” 

It wasn’t what he wanted. Far from it, really. Riley was hungry for a hot breakfast, something that could warm up the chill that had settled over him from the blood loss of being stabbed in each hand. But he was too petrified of being seen as difficult to express a preference.

“Sure, cereal ‘sgood.” 

Sharon busied herself with preparing his breakfast while Riley tried to prepare himself for the humiliation of being spoon-fed like a child. After so many years of taking care of himself, whether by choice or not, he had a hard time coming to terms with his current helplessness. 

And it wasn’t like she jumped at the chance to feed you in the hospital.

When Sharon sat down a square bowl, filled with some sort of flaked cereal and milk, and a spoon, Riley stared at it glumly, hoping that she wouldn’t make him ask. She busied herself with putting away the jug of milk and the box of cereal, and then, finally having run out of things to do instead of pay attention to him, sat down in the seat next to him.

It was the closest that they had been that he had been lucid enough to remember. He felt strange about being this close to his mom again. On one hand, he’d dreamt about having her back in his life, having a mom again. And here she was. On the other hand, his mom looked like she would rather be just about anywhere else in the world at the moment. 

Clearing her throat, she dipped the spoon into the cereal and brought it to his open mouth. Neither mother nor son looked at one another as they repeated the task until the spoon clinked against the bottom of the empty bowl. Riley eyed it regretfully as Sharon took it away and placed it in the dishwasher carefully, not offering any more food. His stomach still screamed for more, but again, he was too afraid to voice what he wanted.

But there was something else. Something he needed addressed, no matter how much he wanted to run away and hide from his mom.

“Um, mom?” The word was clumsy against his tongue. She gave a disinterested “hmm” in response, attention taken by the color-coded calendar of activities on the refrigerator.

“I think my bandages need to be changed.” He eyed his heavy hands, noticing the rusty red that had seeped through both the front and back of each appendage. They were uncomfortable, and becoming more so every time he thought about them. They itched. And he had no way to relieve it. He wanted to retreat so badly, but the potential consequences of ignoring his needs were scary enough to make him address it.

Sharon looked at him the same way she had in the hospital when the nurse had instructed her to feed him. And the same way she had when he’d asked for help getting dressed. But this time, she didn’t have the option to flee or to pass the responsibility onto someone else. 

Riley’s heart sunk at the horror and reluctance that carved her face. 

“I’m sorry for asking.” He mumbled, a sudden onset of self-consciousness drawing his hands into his lap and out of sight. “They’re just really uncomfortable.” 

_____

Riley was pitiful, really. With his brown eyes constantly dark with fear and his complete inability to care for himself, Sharon couldn’t help it when her heart clenched in pity whenever he asked her for something. It felt different from the motherly reflex to take care of whatever her child needed automatically, without question, like when Andy needed a change. Caring for Riley felt more a matter of obligation than compassion. And that only served to add another complex layer to the guilt that smothered her every time she looked at him.

Riley looked cagey and wound tight as he rested his hands on the marble surface for her to tend to. Sharon winced at the sight of old blood and pus that leaked all the way through the white bandages, yellowing them at the wound-site.

Regret swelled in her gut. Sharon knew that they should have been changed yesterday according to the doctor’s instructions. But yesterday she’d been content with letting him sleep, with giving the bare minimum of care. Enough to keep Riley out of pain and asleep. Enough that she only had to think about him when it was time for his next pain medicine dose. And today, due to her carelessness, Riley was paying the price.

And isn’t that the crux of their entire relationship?

Carefully, she unwrapped the bandages. Unwinding and unwinding, from the corner of her eye she caught him flinching whenever the dried blood would catch and pull. But if he was in pain, he never said anything. He never asked her to stop either. She pretended she didn’t notice his discomfort. It wasn’t like she could do anything about it.

Once the bandage was fully removed and the air hit the wound on his left hand, Riley hissed and had to look away. 

The incision was grotesque. Deep red with sharp black lines of stitches sticking out, the healing process had barely begun. Residual blood and fluid flaked against the angry, gory lines. And Sharon suspected that his right hand possessed a matching, equally repulsive wound.

Horror bubbled up from her stomach. When the police officer and the doctor had explained that Riley needed surgery to save the full function of his hands, she hadn’t questioned it further. The enormity of having to see the son she’d abandoned, and then having to bring him home had been all encompassing. But witnessing the stomach-churning reality of injuries inflicted on her son by his father, the father she left him with, left her appalled. 

What had Keith done to their son?

Riley’s labored breathing was what finally grounded her. His face was pale, almost ashen, and damp with sweat. The crescent-shaped bruises under his eyes stood out like spilled ink on paper. The distress was as obvious as a Times Square billboard, but again, he didn’t put a voice to it.

Remembering the nurse’s instructions, she invested her attention back into the wound cleaning and dressing. With a damp cloth, she wiped away the dried blood and drainage gingerly. 

When the cloth caught on one of the sharp black stitches protruding, Riley’s sharp intake of breath alarmed her. She paused. This is typically when she would apologize profusely and try to comfort one of her children. 

_“Shhh, baby, I’m so sorry. You’re okay sweetheart. Shhhh, don’t cry. Mommy will make you feel all better.”_

Sharon didn’t say anything.

She just continued the cleaning, being more careful of Riley’s stitches until it was time to redress the wound. Finishing the bandaging, and making sure the tape was secure, she chanced a look back up at her son. He looked ready to drop. His lower lip was trembling. The sweat was no longer beading, but now saturating his forehead. Sharon determinedly started on the other hand, working quicker and more carefully this time around.

She didn’t let the shock of the gory wound delay her this time around, and she finished his right hand in less than half the time it took to take care of the left.

“All done.” Sharon squeezed both hands gently again to ensure the security of the dressings before Riley withdrew them into his sides protectively. 

His mumbled thanks gave way to a high-pitched crack. Twin streams of tears from his closed eyes confirmed her suspicions that he was crying. 

Whether it was from pain or something more heartbreaking, she wasn’t sure. Either way, the tears wove another strand of guilt through her heart. 

It would have been the right thing to do, to ask him if he was alright. Riley reeked of misery, and looked like a hug and just a little bit of kindness would work wonders for him. 

But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. To get that close to him. To love him again. It would break down too many walls that she’d fought so hard to build. It would let in too much pain that she wouldn’t know how to heal. 

So instead, she dismissed him.

“You should go take a nap Riley.” He finally opened his eyes and looked at her. They were red and wet, and the warm brown she was accustomed to seeing on him when he was a little boy was cold and dark. Closer to black.

Riley stood up shakily and left without a word. 

When she heard a door click shut, closely followed by a choked sob, she pretended she hadn’t heard a thing.


	5. Beg

Adjusting to living in his mother’s house with her family was rough enough. Living every moment as an outsider, clearly unwanted and unwelcome, though no one would outright say it, took its toll on him, wearing him down constantly. He was used to neglect, indifference, dislike, and downright hate, all of them in no short supply growing up with his father. But what he wasn’t used to was witnessing a warm and happy family, living, laughing, and loving each other, and knowing that he had no place among them. 

It was crushing.

Every time he had to brave facing them, usually when his hunger, thirst, or another discomfort got the best of him, he was flayed by the abrupt end of animated conversations and the awkward looks from whoever was around that screamed, “what are you doing here?”

So yeah, that was hard enough.

But the challenge of not being able to take care of himself, of learning to rely on someone else to take care of some of his most basic needs, was arduous at the best of times, and insurmountable at the worst.

Being forced to give up his autonomy and asking someone to do the things he’d been independent in doing by age six was degrading. And his mom’s reaction whenever he dared ask her for something, ranging from disregard and dismay to downright annoyance, well… Riley’s self-worth plummeted to an all-time low.

After the physical and emotional unpleasantness of his mom feeding him not enough breakfast and then changing his bandages on Monday, Riley’s reluctance to ask her for anything grew by the day. And if Riley was reluctant to ask, his mom’s reluctance to help him was exponential. 

That same evening at dinnertime, the hunger that hadn’t been sated at breakfast had turned into a gnawing beast that wouldn’t be ignored any longer. But, sitting at the dining room table among his mother and her family, he was forced to watch them eat while staring enviously at the plate in front of him. His hands were heavy with their inability and anger that he didn’t know how to handle bubbled low in his gut.

_“Mom…” Getting her attention was a battle. “Can you help me eat please?”_

_“Can you wait until I’m done eating Riley?”_

Her voice’s sharp edge of annoyance sliced through him. By the time that the family was done eating, conversation picking up and dishes being cleared, and his mom finally turned her attention to him, Riley’s stomach was sour with self-hate and his appetite had shriveled. She fed him, but her distraction and irritated disposition made each bite of pork, potatoes, and broccoli taste like ash.

Riley hadn’t been able to gather the courage to ask her for his pain medication after that. Or to help him with the blankets because his room was cold. Or to help him change into a new pair of clothing because he was still wearing the same borrowed clothes from Brad that he’d worn since leaving the hospital. 

It was hard enough asking his mother to help him take care of himself. The fact that she clearly didn’t want to help him made his situation excruciating. 

As the week wore on, the tension between Riley not wanting to ask for help and Sharon not wanting to help wore deep treads on both of their temperaments, but it was Riley who would leave each failed interaction feeling emotionally obliterated. 

On Tuesday, Sharon had left in the middle of feeding him breakfast, distracted by Audrey asking for her help with her French braid because it was picture day at school. Riley had stared at his oatmeal until it was cold and congealed, rueful at only getting to eat a few bites of it. Oatmeal was one of his least favorite foods, and it had been this way his whole life. Apparently that was something that his mom had forgotten, but he’d silenced his inner disappointment, because well, beggars can’t be choosers. When Sharon and Audrey had hurried through the kitchen toward the garage, out the door without any acknowledgement of him, Riley resigned himself to being forgotten and went back to his room to lick his emotional wounds.

By Wednesday, his mom had fallen off the schedule of giving him his pain medication on six-hour intervals. She would only remember if he reminded her. And he would only get his pain relief if it was a convenient time for her.

_“Sorry Riley. Brad is calling. I’ll get your medicine after I talk to him.”_

Spoiler alert: she never came back. And he couldn’t gather enough pitiful shreds of courage to ask again. The pain emanating from his hands and ribs was bad, but Riley was accustomed to pain. He could stomach the physical pain far more than he could stomach his mother’s rejection.

The pain was worse on Thursday, especially after another uneasy bandage-changing session from his mom that felt more rushed and less gentle than last time. Sharon remembered his medication that day, only five hours late. And by the time she came into his room to give him the pill, he was struggling immensely to find comfort in his bed, rolling around and futilely trying to find a position that would keep his arms warm without disturbing his hands.

_“I’m cold, mom,” He laid atop the comforter, which was now crumpled and tangled under him, lumps sticking up uncomfortably into his back. “Can I have a sweatshirt, or can you help with blankets?” Riley barely caught her as she rushed out of his room like a swift wind._

_“Sharon! I need your help! Andy smeared peanut butter all over my laptop!”_

She had left without another glance at him, and she hadn’t come back. At least Riley was adjusting to his mom’s treatment, so he’d given up hope of her returning after only ten minutes instead of the hour of waiting when he’d first arrived. Riley had curled into himself, trying to generate enough warmth to not shiver. 

And then he’d buried his head into the pillow and screamed his frustration into it. Riley had been surprised to see the fabric wet with tears when he’d screamed himself out.

By the time Friday rolled around, tensions were hot and high around the house in general, especially between mother and son. Riley’s hands and ribs were still in significant pain and had worn him down until he felt like a raw exposed nerve. Having not taken pain medication for over 24 hours thanks to Sharon’s forgetfulness and his own disinclination to ask, he was exhausted. Adding the constant chills and his hunger that is never satisfied to his laundry list of discomforts, and he was tightly strung and ready to snap.

And Sharon’s stress level wasn’t much better. The burden of maintaining a double life was overwhelming her. There was the life she was living before Riley was foisted upon her. The life with her husband and their three beautiful children. She was a proud mother with hobbies and responsibilities that kept her busy and fulfilled. That was the life she preferred to live in. And then there was the life where she was a terrible parent to a teenager that she’d planned on never seeing again. Sharon would acknowledge that she wasn’t putting her best effort forth in taking care of Riley, but it wasn’t as though she got satisfaction from not taking care of him. 

It was just hard. Enormously difficult.

Every time she looked at him, she saw the little boy with a mop of curls, doe brown eyes, freckles, and a million-watt smile. Then she would see the hollow cheeks and fearful eyes. The bruises underneath his eyes and how his nose looked more crooked now. How he held himself as though he didn’t have the right to be a human being on this planet. And Sharon honestly didn’t know if his smile was the same. She hadn’t seen any sign of it.

She was tired. Tired of the stab of guilt every time Riley asked her for something and she didn’t want to give it. Tired of trying to uphold the life she’d fought hard to build while the destructive waves of her past roared threateningly. Tired of being pulled in two different directions because the law hadn’t given her a choice when it landed Riley with her. 

So by Friday evening, she was beyond burnt out and her patience was thin and brittle. And in no mood to deal with the things that she’d thought best to leave behind.

_____

“Andrew McGrath! Get in the tub right now!”

“No Mommy!”

“Andrew! I’ve asked you three times to take your bath. Now I’m done asking!”

Riley pressed his head further into the deep indentation in his pillow, the loud voice of his mom and the disobedient shrieking of his toddler brother further igniting the severe pain that pumped through his veins. He writhed in the bed, searching for a position that would grant him even a few moments of comfort, but it felt hopeless. If he stayed still too long he would focus too much on the agony. Restlessness was his only respite from the suffering that was overwhelming his senses.

He hasn't taken his pain medication since Wednesday afternoon. And now it was Friday evening. The wounds in his hands throbbed in unison with his pulse. The constant movement irritated his healing ribs. He couldn’t take this much longer. 

As much has he despised the prospect of asking his mom to help him, Riley knew his options had run out. 

With a guttural groan, he pulled himself up and out of his bed, and walked out into the lit hallway. 

Running water could be heard from the bathroom down the hallway, which was also the source of the conflict between his exasperated mother and hyperactive brother. Andy, down to his pullup, made a break for it, only making it as far as the doorway before being snatched up under the armpits by his mom. 

“Andy! Just take your bath. Please!” 

Riley cringed. The timing was awful. She wouldn’t want to help. She was busy with Andy and Brad was downstairs helping Audrey and Matthew with homework. It wasn’t a good time to ask. But the pain was all-consuming. Relief would be worth whatever unkind reaction she had to his asking.

“Mom.” He waited until the bathtub faucet was turned off instead of trying to speak over it. Sharon had gotten Andy into the tub, which was piled high with bubbles that smelled like blueberries, but the kid refused to sit down, complaining that he couldn’t take his stuffed dinosaur into the bath. 

“Andy, if you sit down we can get you clean really fast and then you can go play with dino.” Sharon was reduced to pleading.

“Mom.” Riley tried again, slightly louder.

Sharon whipped her head around and Riley nearly melted under her irritated glare. 

“What do you need?” The sharp enunciation of each word nearly cost him his courage, but the hot throbbing in his hands urged him on.

“Can you help me with my pain medicine please?” The words fell off his tongue in a rushed heap and he snapped his chin to his chest, not wanting to see whatever unpleasant reaction she was sure to have.

“I’m busy right now Riley.” Her voice dripped with condescension, but he could handle that. He’d faced worse. “Ask me later.”

Riley could tell that her words also served as a dismissal, so he trudged back to his room, disappointed, but not surprised. Of all the things he’d learned since coming to live here, the most important lesson was that he would always be his mother’s last priority. 

Adjusting his expectations to that lesson helped him feel less heartbroken whenever she swept him aside like a mangy street cat. 

His father had taught him the valuable skill of being a quick learner, through fists, feet, belts, and whatever else he could find. That quick learning was vital to Riley’s self-preservation.

Sitting back on his bed, he listened intently for the end of the bath. Andy eventually calmed down and agreed to let himself be cleaned. His giggling echoed against the bathroom tile until Riley heard a click and the gurgle of the water draining from the tub.

He wanted to ask again. The pain roiled through him, searing hot and making him dizzy with the agony. But, for best results, he knew he needed to wait, at least until Andy was dressed. 

Riley bit down on his lip and squeezed his eyes tight against the pain. He missed his old self-soothing method of biting his knuckles.

After what seemed like hundreds of deep, carefully metered breaths to control the pain, he heard the door down the hallway close. From learning the family’s routine this week, he knew that meant that the child was put to bed and tucked in. He wondered briefly what story that Sharon had read to him tonight. 

His heart gave a lurch as he remembered the ice cream book that he always begged her to read him every night when he was little. She was so good at the voices.

“Mom,” he spoke up from his doorway, not wanting to miss his opportunity. She halted. “Can I get my medicine?” He paused nervously. “It really hurts.”

Though he had done exactly as she’d asked, his mom still looked annoyed at him, as though he’d asked her for breakfast in bed, a thousand dollars, and a foot massage. 

Just as she turned toward her bedroom to fetch his pill bottle, Brad’s voice boomed from downstairs.

“Sharon honey, my mom wants to talk to you about Thanksgiving! Can you come down here?”

“Coming!” She hollered back and was down the stairs in an instant.

Frustration and hurt burned the back of his neck at the rejection. At how easily he was swept aside again.

This time, Riley stayed rooted where he was standing, unwilling to go back to his room and feel defeated. Hands hanging heavily at his sides, he stayed focused on the stairwell, ready for the moment that his mother came back. 

Five minutes or thirty could have passed by the time she came back up. She recoiled when she saw him, standing like a haunting specter in the hallway. Riley hadn’t wanted to startle her, but he was grateful to have her attention. Sometimes he wasn’t sure if he was even real with how little people seemed to see him.

“Riley, what are you doing?” She said, confused.

“Can you help me with my medicine?” He lost his nerve and averted his eyes to the baseboards. “I haven’t had any since Wednesday.” He swayed lightly on his feet to assuage the nervousness of asking for something when he was so accustomed to being burned (sometimes literally) for doing exactly that.

“Um, sure.” This time, she didn’t sound annoyed or put out, so that was a win, but just as she emerged from her bedroom with the coveted bottle of pain medication, Audrey’s loud voice and bounding footfalls interrupted them.

“Mom, I don’t have anything to wear to the recital tomorrow!” From the urgency in her voice, Riley would have thought that the kitchen was on fire. He couldn’t help the flare of extreme agitation at his half-sister for interrupting when he’d been waiting for so long. 

“I’m entirely sure that you do Audrey. Let’s go look.” Sharon said placatingly, and Riley balked as she started toward Audrey’s room, his bottle of much-needed medication still gripped in her hand. He could hear the pills rattling against the orange plastic, taunting him with their closeness. 

Riley was sure he heard something audible snap within himself. 

_You can’t pick me once? Just ONE TIME, can you please choose me? I’m not asking for a lot. I just want to not be in pain. I just want you to see me. To choose ME._

The forceful wave of frustration roared loudly in his ears, deafening him. He stumbled from his spot and went back to his room. Vision blurred from infuriated tears, he could feel himself losing the battle against the anger that he’d never been sure how to handle.

The embittered, enraged ghoul that had consumed him in the classroom with Mr. Fulk was breaking forth from its cage, confines weakened beyond possible repair.

Riley swiped out at the contents of the desk, sending everything crashing to the floor with an exasperated yell. It wasn’t as though he had a lot of belongings on the desk, after all, this wasn’t actually his room. This was the guest room. But the assortment of toiletries, knick knacks, decorations, and a picture frame that held an image of some beach at sunset made a spectacular sound when they landed in a heap on the carpet.

He didn’t feel any relief from his outburst, but he did feel less like a pressure cooker ready to explode and hurt everyone around him. 

Riley stood planted, staring at the disorganized pile of stuff, panting like he’d just sprinted a mile. In that moment, he didn’t feel the physical suffering that plagued him so terribly.

“What in the…” He heard his mother behind him. The rage started to dissipate, replaced by dread as the reality of his tantrum set in. When he’d lost his cool like this growing up, his father’s punishments had been severe. The phantom sound of a belt buckle sent shivers down his spine. 

“What did you do Riley?!” Her voice was high with anger. Anger at him. Mouth agape, he turned around and looked back at her, unable to answer. He didn’t have to answer though, because she started in on him with gusto.

“What is the matter with you! Throwing a fit and breaking things because you don’t get your way?” She sounded near hysterical. And Riley was frozen.

“I warned you about being violent in my home Riley. Anything else and you are GONE, got it? I don’t care what Child Services or the police have to say about it.” Her voice went low and threatening.

“Grow up Riley. You’re 16. Act like it.” Sharon slamming his door coincided with Riley breaking down sobbing. He crumpled to the floor, unable to stand as the emotional annihilation and physical pain all rushed forth at once. 

Heaving hysterical sobs wrenched from his gut uncontrollably. His sides ached with their force. 

In a childish attempt to self-soothe, he wrapped his arms around his midsection and curled up, rocking back and forth lightly. Over and over, his mom’s harsh, angry words replayed in his head, each time topped off with the loud slamming of his door. 

Riley felt bad for losing his temper and breaking things. She was right, he did need to grow up. But he’d just wanted to feel better. 

Over the span of an hour, the rocking helped calm him down. Coupled with the exhaustion of crying himself out, he couldn’t even find the energy to get into bed before he fell asleep on the floor of the guest bedroom.

____

It wasn’t without guilt that Sharon left Riley alone the next morning, leaving the house with her family to attend Audrey’s clarinet recital. 

Riley’s bedroom door had remained closed since she’d slammed it the night before, and if there was any movement inside, she couldn’t tell. But still, when she closed the door behind the family that morning, she did it gently.

“Mom, aren’t we forgetting Riley?” Matt spoke up as the family climbed into the car. 

“No, he doesn’t feel good so we are letting him stay home and sleep,” she explained as she buckled a wiggly Andy into his car seat. They would be dropping him at the babysitter before going to the recital. At three years old, he couldn’t possibly be expected to sit through the performance quietly.

“Does he not feel good because you yelled at him last night?” Sharon winced at Matt’s bluntness. Brad wordlessly questioned her with arched eyebrows from the driver’s seat. She mouthed “later.”

“No, he’s still recovering from surgery, remember?” Internally she was begging him to just forget and move onto a different topic. 

“But you didn’t tell him that we’re leaving.” Matt protested, much to her chagrin. “What if he doesn’t know where we are when he wakes up?”

“He’ll be fine Matt.” Her tone left no room for further discussion. “He’s older than you. He can take care of himself.” 

Sharon wanted to retract the words before they fully left her tongue. 

Riley can’t take care of himself and you know that. 

Thankfully, Matt dropped his line of questioning when he got distracted by Andy swiping a spitty hand across his Nintendo Switch screen.

Sharon returned her eyes frontward, watching the scenery pass by and trying to settle her unease at leaving him behind.

The original plan had been to tell him about the recital and ask him if he was comfortable staying alone for a few hours while they attended. But the timing had never felt right. Every interaction they had was fraught with high tension and hurt feelings. So while it hadn’t been her intention to leave him in the dark about the event, that’s what ended up happening, whether she felt good about it or not.

After last night’s confrontation, which she already felt terrible enough about, Sharon hadn’t been able to tell him that they were leaving him behind for a family outing. Maybe it was her own guilt getting the best of her. She certainly didn’t derive pleasure from seeing him upset, so avoiding him seemed like the most favorable option.

And she had left a note after all, if he bothered to leave his room to read it. 

For now, in the car with her husband and their three children, Sharon could put on the mask that their life was still normal, and, settling into that fantasy, she put her mind at ease


	6. Worthless

When Riley woke up the next day, he felt hollow, like a withered husk of himself. His eyes were sore and swollen and dried tears flaked away when he opened them. 

The first thing he noticed upon waking up was the quietness. Living in a house with five other people, which included two pre-teens and a toddler, there was hardly a moment when silence could break through the constant chatter, playful yelling, children’s television shows, video game sounds, clarinet rehearsal, and toys singing nursery rhymes. 

He could make out a bird tweeting and a lawn mower whirring in the distance. And that was it.

Confusion settled over him like a thick fog. Why was it quiet? Sun shone through the windows, bright and high enough in the sky that no one would be asleep at this time.

Riley unfurled himself from the huddled position he’d cried himself to sleep in the night before. His body creaked in protest and he struggled to lift himself off the floor. 

Still blinking the sleep from his eyes, he nearly gasped as the previous night’s hell, both physically and emotionally collided with each other, and then into him like a cold, unforgiving wave of unpleasantness. His mother’s harsh words sliced through him like a white hot blade.

_“I warned you about being violent in my home Riley. Anything else and you are GONE. I don’t care what Child Services or the police have to say about it.”_

Last night, in an attempt at self-preservation, he’d kept those words at a distance, focusing on anything but what it meant that she’d leveled that threat against him. But now, all he could do was dissect them, to pick them apart as they wormed through his brain like a parasite, latching onto thoughts and memories and feeding on them, leaving them patchy, frayed, and yellowed.

It seemed like his mother knew what both Child Protective Services and the authorities would say about it if she were to give him up, leave him, however that would happen... and the only way she would know that is if she’d already tried to take that option. 

Riley inhaled sharply at the unexpected clarity that hit him with the same impact as one of his father’s kicks to the ribs.

She never wanted you here. She didn’t want to take you. She never wanted you at all. If she had any other choice, she wouldn’t have come back for you. She didn’t come back because she wanted you. But you already knew that. It isn’t like she rolled out the red carpet for you. 

Riley wallowed in the misery of realizing finally what a forced arrangement this was, living with his mom and her family. It was one thing to live with the mother that abandoned him at five-years old and hoping that things between them would get better the more they got to know each other. It was an entirely different thing to realize just how unwanted he was, just how unwelcome his presence was. To realize that his mother, if given any other option, would have left him to rot, abandoned and utterly alone.

Blinking back the tears that stung the raw, red skin around his eyes, Riley accepted the lesson that had been forcefully taught in the days and weeks after his mom had walked out on him initially. It was something that he’d known all along, really, and he chastised himself for forgetting in the time following his hospitalization. The lesson that had kept him alive when he realized how alone he was, and that just because he had parents, it didn’t mean that they would love him or take care of him.

_You have to take care of yourself Riley._

Fortified by solemn determination, Riley clenched his jaw and stood up, ignoring the excruciating pain that rang through his entire body. He wouldn’t rely on his mom to take care of his needs anymore. It was unfair of him to force her to do that when he could do it himself. 

Right now, there were two things that he needed in order to take care of himself. Pain medication and food. If he could prove to himself that he could take care of those two things without any help, then he could stop being such a goddamn burden on a mother that had made it abundantly clear that she had no interest in the role.

His bandaged hands were a significant obstacle, sure, but they were also temporary, he reminded himself as he pawed at the doorknob until the tips of his fingers caught enough of a hold to turn it.

It was just like when he was ten and his dad held his hand against a hot burner on the stove for failing enough assignments that his teacher called for a conference. He’d had to learn to write, eat, and do chores with his non-dominant hand after that incident while the blisters, infection, and sensitive new skin worked themselves through the healing process. It had been hard, but temporary. He’d gotten through then, and he would get through now. He had no choice, given his mother’s disdain toward him.

The silence of the empty house was still eerie as he made his way into the kitchen. Electric blue numbers on the stove clock told him it was half past eleven in the morning. It was still a mystery to him where the family was, but he was also relieved that he could work through the challenges of feeding and medicating himself without any outside interference.

Riley started with the refrigerator, wondering if there would be any leftovers that he could claim and eat without much difficulty. Amidst the A-plus assignments, magnet pictures, and childish drawings on the refrigerator, his name on a yellow sticky note jumped out at him.

“Riley, we went to Audrey’s clarinet recital. Back around noon. Call 555-0812 if you need something. Sharon.”

She didn’t even sign it “Mom,” he thought with a supplementary ache on top of all of his other discomforts. 

Well, that explained the silence. And he didn’t even have the energy to feel abandoned by the fact that they’d not told him about leaving, and only left behind a vague, barely noticeable note. It was a non-issue compared to everything that he was going through. It wasn’t like he wanted to go, having heard enough clarinet rehearsal coming from the bedroom adjacent to his own this past week. Sure, being included as part of the family would have been nice, warm, amazing… but he wasn’t part of the family and if he didn’t know that before, well it was clear now.

Besides, Riley thought as he leveraged the first two knuckles on his fingers to open the French doors of the fridge, he had to worry about taking care of himself. That was the most important thing. Surviving under his own accord.

Everything in the refrigerator looked to be too much trouble to prepare with his limited abilities, so he shut it with his elbow. In the freezer, he found frozen waffles, which were a favorite of Matt’s. He was hungrier than some waffles would satisfy, but life was about survival now, not comfort. Hissing as he had to flex his fingertips together to grab two from the box, Riley pulled them out and closed the freezer drawer with his foot. 

Sliding them in the toaster slots, he turned his attention to finding a plate. Hooking his pinky around the decorative pull and opening the white cabinet, Riley ran into his first roadblock.

The plates were above his head, and reaching wasn’t in his wheelhouse with his fractured ribs. They were also heavy and glass, and piled in a stack of at least eight, so he would have to take off the top. He sighed, drumming his fingertips against the counter, considering forgoing the plate entirely, but a surge of self-sufficiency spurred him onward. Plates would definitely be necessary for future meals, and if he was going to figure this out, now was going to be the time, not when his mom, or Brad, or his siblings were around to criticize his autonomy.

Grunting with the pain and exertion, he reached his arm up and tried to nudge the top plate out of place far enough that he could pinch it between his fingers. The glassware started to shift under his efforts, and then the whole stack started to lean at an impossible angle before falling out of the cabinet and onto the countertop and floor with a prolonged and deafening shatter. 

Riley stared in horror at the destruction, jaw dropped and pupils blown wide. A deep pit of dread started churning in his gut. He stood, frozen and paralyzed until the pop of the toaster made him jump and set fireworks alight in his nerves.

His fuck up felt massive, and he had no idea what to do about it. 

Through the rushed adrenaline of his panic, Riley forced himself to calm down and begin damage control, much the way he would if he was dealing with a crisis while living back with his father. First, he calmed his breathing down from labored pants to measured inhales and exhales. Next, he had to assess the damage and what could be done to clean and cover up any evidence that it ever happened.

The mess was… significant. Shards of glass of every size, ranging from splinters to large slabs were everywhere he could see. And he didn’t know where any of the cleaning supplies were kept around here. And it was almost noon when the family was supposed to be back. And he was barefoot. And he had very little use of his hands… Riley was rapidly backsliding into panic as the whirlpool of negative thoughts dizzied him.

Determined to break free from his paralysis though, he took a step and let out a whimper when a piece of glass sliced into his right arch. Losing both his focus and his balance, he tripped forward and took another sloppy step into more glass, cutting multiple areas on his left foot. Howling with the surprised pain, all he could do was keep his position and lean back against the counter, hoping to avoid cutting himself up further.

Looking down, smears of bright red marred the white kitchen floor tiles where he’d stepped, and at the base of both of his feet were deep red pools.

All Riley had managed to do was make things worse. 

The swell of self-loathing made his chest cavity feel near to bursting. He had just wanted to take care of himself. He’d wanted to eat and all he’d managed to do was destroy a kitchen and further injure himself.

_You’re such a fuck up. Dad was always right about that. You can’t do anything right Riley. You ALWAYS manage to screw up. What the fuck is wrong with you? Everything you touch turns to shit._

Riley’s spiral of self-hatred was interrupted when he heard the mechanical whirr of the garage door opening and the sound of a car pulling in. He felt like he was falling from great heights as he surveyed the disastrous mess he’d made and realized that there was no way to make it better in the moments before his mom saw everything and knew he was responsible.

He was hyper-aware of his senses as his fear-induced paralysis took over once again. The car engine shut off. Car doors slammed. Sharon’s voice. Brad’s voice. Audrey’s voice. Matt’s voice. Andy’s babbling. The doorknob turning.

The animated chatter of Sharon, Brad, and their children cut short as soon as they locked eyes on him. The full scope of the mess wasn’t yet visible to them, as it was hidden behind the kitchen’s central island, but some of the smashed plates rested on the marble countertop, and that was enough to elicit a gasp from Sharon.

“Wh- what happened here?” She walked toward him to survey the entire mess, hand to her chest, mouth drawn down is a silent gasp. Riley couldn’t bring himself to reply, and it didn’t really seem like she was noticing him anyway, just the destruction he’d caused.

The next person to react was Brad, who was quicker to approach than his wife. Though his intent was most likely just to take charge of the situation, and the man had never hurt him in the time he’d known him, Riley’s terror took over and alarms blared loud and severe in his head. 

He stumbled backwards clumsily in an attempt to distance himself, glass shards further slicing his feet. His lower back was wedged in the corner of the kitchen counter and his fingertips braced the surface to ground him. 

“Riley, will you tell us what’s going on here?” Though his tone wasn’t threatening, it was authoritative and that was enough to send his instincts into fight or flight. 

Riley was cornered and the space between himself and Brad seemed to grow infinitesimal. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t focus on anything except the danger in front of him. The ghoul in his mind hissed and growled ferally.

_You have two options. You can either take your beating or you can fight back._

And Riley had already taken enough beatings.

“Stay the fuck away from me!” Riley didn’t recognize the voice that came from his mouth. It didn’t sound his own. 

“Riley,” Brad put his hands out in a non-threatening, placating manner, but Riley was too far gone to care.

“No! I said stay the fuck back! You don’t get to do that shit to me.” He couldn’t control what he was saying. The rage that had caused him to spill his dirty secrets in class the week before had control again. And again, he was thrown in the back, only able to observe as this ghoul controlled him like a puppet master.

Brad backed away slowly, nodding his understanding and making every effort to show he wasn’t a threat. 

“Brad, can you please take the kids upstairs.” Sharon’s words were careful and measured. Riley noticed that she didn’t take her eyes off him, though she was speaking to her husband. “I can take care of this.”

“Are you sure babe?” Brad paused, still standing as a buffer between Riley and Sharon, looking between them with grave concern.

“Yes, I’ll handle him Brad. Now please take care of the kids.” Her tone was authoritative. She glanced away from Riley to reassure her husband, who nodded in understanding and then moved to shepherd the kids upstairs. The three of them had been completely silent, even Andy, whose hand was clasped in Audrey’s. 

Once they were out of sight, Sharon and Riley stayed silent, staring at each other in a solid impasse. It wasn’t until three consecutive closing doors resounded that Sharon started in on him, eyes narrowing viciously.

“What happened here?” Each word was lined with a jagged edge, and Riley winced, losing the battle and looking away. 

He tried to speak, but just couldn’t. He withered under her intense, pointed glare. It was all Riley could do to remind himself to breathe as the adrenaline from the potential attack from Brad left him in one fell swoop.

“Answer me!” She yelled, slapping her hand on the countertop angrily for emphasis. Riley flinched violently and felt an uncontrollable tremor originate from his spine and spread down to his knees.

“What were you doing? Why are all my plates smashed Riley?” Her voice and demeanor demanded an answer. 

“I-I w-w-was try-trying t’” Riley’s tongue acted of its own accord. His brain couldn’t process the words he was trying to say. The stutter was so severe that not a single comprehensible word passed his lips. But Sharon didn’t wait for him to gather himself so he could speak before sinking her claws in further.

“Did you do this on purpose Riley?” Riley could only shake his head, an exaggerated frown pulling his face downward. “Were you upset that we left so you threw another tantrum? I told you last night that that violence is not acceptable in my house. What is wrong with you?!”

Riley continued to shake his head miserably, the collage of blood and glass at his feet swirling together like a twisted art piece, but Sharon persisted with her verbal attack.

“Are you determined to be some sort of problem child Riley? Did you not get enough attention so you have to act out like an insolent brat?”

Riley’s head snapped up and sudden visceral clarity took over, tired from beating beaten over the head emotionally by his mother.

This time, both Riley and the ghoul had a hand on the steering wheel.

“STOP!” He yelled abruptly.

“Stop it!” This time, his raised voice cracked miserably. “What did I do? Tell me what I did to make you hate me! Why do you hate me so fucking much?!” Sharon’s jaw dropped, looking gobsmacked at his outburst.

“Are you mad that I finally said something about what he was doing and now you’re forced to take care of me? Do you wish that I’d kept my mouth shut and bled out on the floor or would you prefer that he just beat me to death so you never had to deal with me again?” 

Riley panted wildly, pupils blown wide in hysterics. 

“Do you wish he’d left me knifed to the fucking floor mom?! Is that what you wanted?” His voice rose to a pitchy crescendo.

If anything that he just blurted out affected his mother in any way, she didn’t show it. Her face remained hard and stoic as she stared intently at him.

“Stop being dramatic Riley.” She crossed her arms over her chest, demeanor staying frigid and even in stark contrast to Riley’s intensely upset state.

“No!” It came out more as a whine than a dissent. “Why don’t you ever want to help me?!” He begged, overwrought with the pain and frustration from every single request from this past week that was either completed with explicit disdain or entirely ignored. “You never want to help me! Why?!”

“Because you’re not very pleasant to be around Riley.” Every word was forceful and biting, and they stopped Riley’s flare-up cold. Sensing the momentum shift when her son had no response, Sharon proceeded with vitriol.

“You’re angry, unpleasant, vindictive, and violent. Just like your father.” Her descriptions landed like leaden punches and her last statement hit Riley with the impact of an atomic bomb.

His face drew down in misery as he processed the annihilation that was still making its way through his system.

Growing up with his father, the man would pick apart any negative trait he saw in Riley and would attribute it to his mother. 

_“You’re one ugly fucker. Look just like your mother.”_

_“Dumb son of a bitch. You get that from your mom.”_

_“Think you’re better than me Riley? Your mom was an entitled bitch too.”_

So, for his mother to pick out perceived qualities in him, especially such negative ones, and attribute them to his father… well, if Riley had any self-worth left before this argument, it had been crushed into a fine dust and swept away clean with agonizing proficiency.

Riley couldn’t look away from his mother’s unrelenting glare. His lower lip started to tremble, but the expected tears did not follow.

God, it was no wonder the people who created him treated him like a worthless piece of trash. All they saw when they looked at him were the things they hated about each other. Riley was just a screwed up concoction of the worst parts of his mother and father, wrapped up into one pathetic, unlovable package. 

Emotionally demolished, Riley felt distinctly like he’d fallen to an all-time-low. Lower than being stabbed through the hands, trapped on the floor and left to bleed out. He’d fallen, reached terminal velocity, and then splattered in the face of the hopes and dreams he’d held close about his mom since he was young.

Well, he reasoned with himself, trying to relieve the stiffness that had spread through him when he’d absorbed the last hit from his mother, the silver lining of reaching rock bottom was that there was nothing left to lose. No farther to fall.

It took him a few tries to speak through the quiver in his lips, but he managed.

“Did you know?” He asked. Sharon looked puzzled. “Did you know he was like that when you left?” 

Riley had carried that question like a proverbial cross to bear ever since the first violent slap Keith had landed across his cheek. When his mother had left, walked out on him without any contact, did she know that she was leaving him with a violent, abusive, drunken monster of a man? Or was she in the dark about what kind of a man that she bore a child with and then abandoned? 

The answer weighed on him constantly growing up, with no way to get an honest answer. He had no phone number, address, or anything that he could use to contact his mom to ask her if she’d knowingly left him to a life of abuse and neglect. He didn’t even have any pictures of her. All traces of her existence had been burned in an impromptu bonfire in their backyard, his father pouring more and more lighter fluid as he crushed beer can after beer can, watching her belongings and memories go up in flames. A teary-eyed Riley had watched from up close, unable to fully comprehend the levity of the trauma.

After a seemingly interminable silence, Sharon spoke up.

“I’m not going to talk about this when you’re this upset Riley.” Condescension and consternation radiated off her. 

Riley felt robbed. After she’d taken his heart and curb-stomped it with devastating effect, she was trying to brush him off again. But he was tired of being swept aside like an inconvenience, a nuisance that had no business asking for what he needed.

“Answer the question!” Riley demanded, the sensation of dominance foreign against his tongue. “Did you walk out and leave your son with a man that you knew was capable of sticking knives through his son’s hands and leaving him there to choke to death in his own blood? ” Every word tasted like excruciating poison to him, but the graphic, gory language gave rise to a reaction from Sharon, who pounced on his question like a hungry predator on vulnerable prey.

“Of course I knew! How could I not?” Her composure had collapsed into an overwrought frenzy. “Why do you think I left, Riley?”

There it was. The answer that he’d agonized over every day once he realized that his mommy wasn’t coming back and his daddy hated him. The answer that had tormented him from the time he’d been a lonely, sad, unloved little boy to the time he’d grown into a lonely, angry, unloved young man. 

Now that he had his answer, he wished he’d never asked, because the confirmation that his abuse was no secret to his mother, that, perhaps it was even calculated, caused the very foundation of Riley’s battered heart to crack and fold in on itself. 

She knew. She’d always known. And she didn’t care. 

_Worthless. Worthless. Worthless. You’re nothing Riley. Your mom threw you to the boogeyman and wiped her hands clean of you. If you were worth anything, she wouldn’t have left. Or..._

Light years past the point of crying, Riley could only blink up at her despondently, all of the physical pain that had ailed him, from his hands and ribs, to his feet, gone, numb. 

“Then why didn’t you take me with you?”


	7. Try

Her son’s deadened, lifeless voice shook Sharon to her very core. Riley was an open book to her and he always had been. The little boy she’d raised had never been able to hide a single emotion or secret from her, sometimes nearly vibrating with eagerness to share whatever thought or feeling was on his mind. His emotions were always painted on his face in bright red, and his eyes played like a movie of his thoughts. Even now, when Sharon wasn’t completely sure if Riley wasn’t adept at hiding his feelings at all, or if she just knew him that well, she could read him like highlighted, bolded print.

So to hear him ask that haunting question with an even more haunting tone, gave her chills. His eyes were black, and didn’t even hold minute specks of the warm chestnut that she saw every morning in her own reflection. 

And how could she possibly answer him?

Their interaction had devolved from a confrontation into an emotionally-fraught screaming match with both mother and son trying to land a more devastating hit on the other.

This wasn’t the time for this conversation. It wasn’t the time for her to explain the agonizing decision-making, the intricacies of the situation, and the terrible guilt she’d endured every day for, having no alternative, erecting impenetrable barriers that blocked out not only her abusive ex-fiancé, but also her innocent baby boy.

He wouldn’t hear her, even if she tried. Riley emitted a fragility at the moment that she was worried she would completely shatter with a single imprecise word or action, if she hadn’t already.

Sharon forced herself to look away from his onyx eyes, still embellished with azure and indigo bruises underneath. 

Finally allowing herself to survey the full scope of the shattered flatware, she was aghast at the blood puddled at both of Riley’s bare feet, and the rusty brown streaks on the tiles surrounding him. 

“You’re bleeding.” She stated, matter-of-factly. He barely nodded, not even a flicker of emotion on his face.

“Come on,” she motioned, moving around to the other side of the kitchen island and trying to lead him away from the minefield of glass shards. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” 

It did not escape Sharon that this was the first instance in their short re-unified relationship that she’d taken the initiative to offer help past the first day when she’d administered drugs to a sleepy, out-of-it Riley. 

He watched her with a caution that she felt was unearned, given that she’d never physically harmed him, but Sharon was quick to forgive, as Riley had given the same look to her husband just before their disastrous conversation.

Reaching out her hand, he met her in the middle with his bandaged appendage. She lightly circled her fingers around his wrist and led him gently away from the broken plates. He followed obediently like a mindless drone. Sharon paid only half a mind to the bloody footprints Riley left in his wake. 

Cleaning up her son’s blood from their kitchen tiles would be a lot easier than mending the damage that she’d done to him by letting her anger and resentment get the best of her.

_____

Sitting on the edge of the bathtub while his mother tended to his injured feet, Riley wasn’t thinking anything. He wasn’t feeling anything either. 

Maybe there should have been some sort of shock factor when he saw the two-inch long bloody shard of white glass that was extracted from his left foot. But he barely blinked. 

For the first time, his mother was tender with her care, but any positive feelings that came from that thought were too distant to connect with. It was like looking at a blurry picture of a ruined painting. He could understand the outline and the purpose, but he couldn’t access anything real about it. 

Riley was numb, and perhaps it was his mind’s coping mechanism to help him weather the blow of knowing that his mother knowingly abandoned him to a dark life of abuse. Or maybe he’d taken one too many blows now, and his heart was just broken beyond repair. Emotionally totaled, or something of that sort. 

Either way, he couldn’t bring himself to care when Sharon asked him if the bandages wrapped around each of his feet were too tight or too loose.

“Fine,” he replied, voice flat, even though he wished they were a touch looser. Maybe his toes would turn purple and fall off, he mused grotesquely.

“Here, you should take one of these.” Riley had to blink his eyes into focus as a hand appeared in front of his face, a small white pill sitting in the outstretched palm. 

It took him a moment before he recognized it as his pain medication. The same medication he had practically begged his mother for the previous evening, only to be rejected and forgotten. So freely given now. He stared blankly at it before his mom instructed him to open his mouth so she could give it to him. 

Riley swallowed the pill dry, barely tasting the chalky tang. Falling into an opioid-induced fog actually sounded pleasant at this point, a respite from the flaming car-wreck of emotions that his mind was trying to block out.

He hardly registered the movement as his mother lightly grabbed his wrist again and led him to his room. At this point, it felt like he was an uninterested spectator sitting on the sidelines of his life. The sensations of pain and tightness shot up from his feet, but once more, he couldn’t reach out and fully access the feelings. He couldn’t even appreciate the kind contact from his mom, which, as a severely touch-starved person, he would normally soak up like a dry sponge on a hot day. 

“Get some rest.”

Sharon’s instructions cut through the fog overtaking his mind. He stood absently in the doorway to the guest room, looking at the messy, unmade bed, but not really seeing it. 

“I’ll check on you later.” Riley, trying to break through the shields his mind was throwing up, turned his head toward his mom, hoping for something, anything that would give life back to that burned, blackened, miniscule tendril of hope that he’d curled around and protected deep in his soul. 

A soft look, kind words, a touch… anything. Anything to prove that he was wrong to give up on his mom.

But she was already gone.

Riley trudged over to the bed and fell onto the pile of unkempt blankets. When a shiver worked its way up his spine and goosebumps emerged on his arms, he could only feel apathetic. He didn’t move to maneuver any covers over himself.

For the second time in recent memory, as Riley closed his eyes, he hoped that he wouldn’t wake up.

_____

_Well, all of that went terribly._

Sharon replayed the entire situation in her head, over and over, from start to finish each time as she gathered the discarded bandage wrappers and cleaned the blood from the bathroom floor.

She chastised herself as she remembered her cruelty in comparing him to his father, and how thoroughly destroyed he’d looked. The comparison had been needlessly brutal, and in fact, it hadn’t even been necessary for her to say aloud. Sharon’s frustration and anger had taken the steering wheel from the moment she recognized the broken plates splayed around Riley to the moment he went despondent after she wouldn’t answer why she left him behind.

Her son’s complete despondence during the process of applying first aid to his feet had been eerie and unnerving. Not once did he gasp, hiss, or even blink as she used tweezers to take out the glass shards that jutted out from the bottoms of his feet. He never even seemed to notice when she warned him about something she had to do that would cause a lot of discomfort. 

Riley’s demeanor had been a sharp contrast to how he acted when she changed the bandages on his hands. He could hardly sit still against the pain, and the immense discomfort had flashed across his face like a neon advertisement. 

Sharon let out an exhausted sigh as she made her way downstairs, feet landing heavily on every step. 

The mess in the bathroom was the least of her worries. The ocean of shattered glass in the kitchen had to be taken care of before any of her other kids could come downstairs. She didn’t want them to get cut, and more importantly, she didn’t want them to ask questions that she wouldn’t know how to answer.

In the kitchen, Brad was already starting on the clean-up process, gathering the large pieces of glass to throw in the nearby trash can. A broom and dustpan leaned against the countertop. 

“Where are the kids?” Sharon asked, suspicious of the lack of background noise that came with three kids. No Octonauts or Xbox sounds came from the living room. Audrey wasn’t on the phone talking with a friend. And no one had come up to beg her for anything. 

Brad tossed a large slab of plate in the trash before looking up at her.

“They’re all over with the Santiagos. Adrian came over to ask Matt to play and I asked Sophia if she could watch all three for a couple hours.” He explained, wiping his hands off on his jeans. Grateful relief spread through Sharon’s chest, and suddenly, she felt the tension that had been holding together snap, the adrenaline rushing out of her like a popped balloon. 

She collapsed onto one of the kitchen chairs, opposite of the side of the island that had the mess. Propping her head up on her hand, she looked into her husband’s wildly concerned eyes.

“I think the only way that could have gone worse is if I had actually set him on fire.” A mirthless laugh bubbled up as Brad stood across the island from her, hands braced on the countertop. He was giving her the look that always melted her and told her that things would be okay. It was the same look that she’d trusted all those years ago when he said he would keep her safe from Keith.

“Yeah, I heard some of the yelling. Didn’t seem like it was going great,” he said, brushing some of the glass dust onto the floor. “Why don’t you tell me what happened? Did he tell you why the plates were broken?”

Sharon shook her head, lips in a tight line. The question about the broken plates felt like it had happened eons ago, and was hardly even relevant considering all that had occurred since.

“No, he couldn’t answer me when I asked, so then I yelled at him, and then he yelled back at me. Then I compared him to his father; you know, the man who abused him… And then both of us yelled some more, and then he asked why I abandoned him as a kid.” Sharon rattled off in an upset frenzy. “Oh, and then I realized that the entire time we’d been arguing that he was standing in broken glass!” She appended, ending on a hysterical note.

“Well that explains the blood on the floor,” Brad said, eyebrows were furrowed, leaving deep creases in his forehead. 

Sharon took a cannonball right back into the tirade, unable to stomach just how sour things had turned between her and Riley.

“So I cleaned him up and then just sent him to bed, because I don’t know what the hell else to do with him Brad!” 

Husband and wife locked eyes, and Brad’s expression wordlessly asked if she needed to say more. Sharon sighed and started again, calmer, but also sadder.

“This just isn’t working out. He deserves better than I can give him. He deserves a good mother.” Her face flushed, red and hot, as her emotions finally finished playing catch up and her vision began to swim.

Brad reached a rough, calloused hand across the counter to grab her own. His grip was comforting, grounding for her, but she couldn’t bring herself to look up at him, too entrenched in her self-hatred to accept his efforts of solace.

“He has a great mother, Sharon. He has you, and you are the best mother I know.” 

“Not to him I’m not.” She shook her head vehemently, unwilling to accept that she could possibly be seen as a good parent with how she’d treated Riley. Did it matter if she was a good mother to three when the fourth was forsaken? 

“With Riley I’m angry, short, impatient—”

“And why do you think you’re like that?” Brad cut her off suddenly. It felt like the thousandth impossibly difficult to answer question she’d been asked that day. She shrugged, sitting back in the chair and blowing out all the air in her lungs in one heaving sigh. She was tired. 

Sharon knew exactly why she acted like that to Riley. The reason gave her a constant, low-grade nausea every single time she looked at him. But to put words to it? She didn’t know if she could.

For Brad, she would try. 

_For Riley, you should try. He deserves that much._

“Because, when I look at Riley, all I can see is the biggest mistake I ever made.” The words felt like a boulder being lifted off her chest, each one lightening the load a little bit more. 

Brad looked surprised at her admission. “Having a child with Keith?” He questioned her. Again, Sharon shook her head, but she wasn’t looking at her husband now. Her gaze was far away, not actually looking for anything, and certainly not seeing anything.

“No. Riley was never the mistake.” Her maternal heart gave a startling clench at even the barest thought of considering her first-born son as a mistake. “The mistake was leaving him behind.”

Sharon recognized with a jolt that this was the first time in her life that she admitted, even to herself, that leaving Riley behind was a mistake. In the past, she’d considered abandoning her son a necessary evil, Riley as a necessary sacrifice, so that she and Brad could get away from Keith and his violent tendencies, and start their life together with the new baby she was carrying. 

Maybe she’d always known that leaving him was a mistake, but she’d never allowed herself to think even a faint caricature of that monumental truth. If admitting to herself that leaving Riley was a mistake, did that make her entire life with Brad and their three beautiful children a mistake?

There never seemed to be a winning scenario in this for Sharon.

“I don’t mean to hurt you when I say this honey, but if that’s how you feel, then why are you punishing Riley for your mistake?”

Brad’s question sounded harsh to Sharon’s ears. It was uncomfortable and hit in all the wrong ways. But, Sharon considered, she had been harsh to Riley, and had hit him in all the wrong ways. Turnabout is fair play, after all. 

“I have a difficult time separating him from Keith, and the life I left behind” she began, hoping she could come up with the words to explain to her husband why she treated Riley the way she did, without sounding like a complete and utter monster. 

“When I left, I had to find a way to make leaving Riley tolerable. And the only way I found I could do that was to think of Keith whenever I thought about Riley. It helped. It really did,” she reminisced, thinking back to when abandoning Riley stopped feeling like a gaping crater in her heart. “Whenever I thought of him, I would remember Keith, and the awful things he said and did. I remembered the fear, the broken arm, the thrown liquor bottles.

“So, eventually it got to the point that thinking of Riley would just feel like inviting those horrific memories back into my life, which is the opposite of what I wanted. I didn’t see him as my little boy. All I saw in him was a consequence of staying with Keith.” 

Though the words she was saying were tight and difficult, she couldn’t stop herself, even if she wanted to. Admitting this to Brad, and more importantly, to herself, was cathartic. 

“And by then, I had Audrey to think about and take care of. I told myself that having her in my life filled whatever hole was left when I didn’t have my son. When the police came and told me about what happened, I realized that I hated even the faintest thought of him. And when I saw him in the hospital for the first time, barely conscious, but happy that I came back to him, instantly forgiving, I hated myself because I could only see Keith.”

Sharon broke her faraway gaze and fixed her brown eyes on Brad’s own blue set. 

“I thought it would get better after we brought him home. I thought that I would be able to, I don’t know, disentangle Riley from his father. I thought that if I could do that, that I would be able to have my little boy back.” She stared at Brad with glassy desperation. “But I can’t. I can’t separate Riley from Keith. And I can’t get that little boy back.” 

“I don’t think he’s that little boy anymore,” Brad interjected sympathetically. Sharon blinked, releasing the first tear droplets down her cheeks to drip onto the countertops.

“No, he isn’t.” Sharon concurred desolately. “Too much has happened.” The unspoken “to him” hung heavy in the air between them.

“He’s just as much of a victim of Keith as you were.” Brad offered tentatively. Sharon put a hand over her mouth, stricken at the grief that came along with that fact. She suddenly wanted to be sick as she remembered the waterfall of confessions that Riley had blurted out in his anger. The why behind him being in the hospital, needing surgery. 

Horror spread through her veins like ice as the gory red lines on his hands appeared every time she blinked.

“Keith stabbed him through the hands.” Whatever Brad was expecting her to say, it wasn’t that. He looked taken aback, and for one of the first times in their relationship, it didn’t look like he knew what to say.

“I don’t know the specifics.” She continued. “I never asked. But he said that his father knifed him to the floor.” Her stomach felt like it was free falling.

“I knew Keith wasn’t a good person. I thought he could be a decent father, but what he did to my son was evil.”

_My son. My son. My son._

Sharon felt something shift into place within herself. As though a piece of her heart that had sat askew over it’s home had settled back into its resting place, fitting snugly where it belonged. The fault lines showing where it had fractured being the only evidence that it had ever been broken in the first place. Calling Riley her son… she didn’t know how much it could possibly change. 

“I’m worried I’ve ruined things between us. I don’t think it can get better. Not after the things I said today.” Sharon was swept away with the shame and regret. Both were familiar feelings, but they weren’t directed at Riley anymore. No, they were for her, and how she treated her little boy.

It took Brad a few tries to get her to look him in the eyes. She was too ashamed of even considering herself as Riley’s mother for what she’d done to him. 

_Just like your father!_

_Of course I knew!_

_Grow up Riley!_

_Are you determined to be a problem child?_

Each cruel, awful word she’d spat at him played as a terrible, disjointed reprise in her head before Brad grasped her hand and squeezed reassuringly, snatching her attention back.

“Sharon, Riley deserves to have his mom back as much as you deserve to have your son back.” 

The words acted as a healing balm on the raw, scathed wound that was her relationship with Riley. 

“So you don’t think it’s hopeless?” She couldn’t help the yearning in her voice as she grasped Brad’s hand in return. He shook his head decidedly. 

“No, it isn’t hopeless. He’s your son and you’re his mom. And that’s never hopeless.”

“So where do I even start? What do I do?” 

She stood up and walked around to her husband, the glass crunching under her feet. Surveying the mess of broken flatware and blood stains, the enormity of the disaster overwhelming her. She and Brad began working together to clean up and fix what happened.

“I’ve yelled at him twice in the last 24 hours. He probably thinks I hate him.”

“That’s… obviously not ideal,” Brad said with a tilt of his head. “But I think you know what to do. You’re a mom, and you’ll do what moms do.”

Sharon swallowed dryly, nodding and understanding. She knew. She’d always known really, but she hadn’t understood until she called Riley her son out loud.

_You are going to do what moms do. And moms take care of their children. Riley is your child. He’s not his father. He’s your son. And you’re his mom._

_____

That evening, Sharon tried extra hard to be quiet when she slowly opened the door to the guest room to check on her son. The room was dark, light from the hallway bleeding in just enough for her to see Riley’s closed eyes. Though he was asleep, his face was still hard and stricken. His shoulders were drawn up near his ears and he was crunched up into a tight ball.

Even in his sleep, he didn’t look restful, she lamented.

But she didn’t want to wake him, even if her intentions were to help. 

She’d come upstairs to see if he was hungry and wanted dinner, but she wouldn’t disturb him. Not when he clearly needed the rest. No matter how fitful, he needed sleep.

“Sleep tight Ri,” she whispered into the darkness before closing the door.


	8. Vulnerable

The heavy fog of waking up from the influence of his pain medication was quickly becoming a most-hated sensation for Riley. He never felt rested, only heavy. His mouth was dry and cottony, and his limbs felt glued to the bed. Riley’s pain was duller, more of a low buzz than a sharp staccato.

In a disoriented haze, he peeled himself off his bed, his clothes greasy and crumpled. His nose crinkled as his own body odor offended him. He fleetingly thought of how disgusting it was that he’d been in the same clothes for a week, and that the extent of his bathing was a wet rag he’d rubbed against his face with his forearms each day. Sure, he felt gross, but if his mom could barely tolerate the exacerbating task of feeding him, he didn’t want to face the degrading humiliation of having her reluctantly bathe him as well.

The bandages around his feet coiled tightly with each slow step. He could feel each laceration opening under the pressure of his body-weight, but the discomfort barely touched him. Riley’s mind was on a single track still: survival. 

_You have to take care of yourself Riley._

By age seven he’d been well-versed in the fact that survival did not equate comfort. Survival meant eating enough to not faint, not enough to satisfy his screaming stomach because he didn’t know how long he’d have to make this food last before dad came back. Survival meant his hands and feet being so cold that they hurt, but not to the point of being numb as he curled up under a pile of towels after the heat was turned off in January. If he was still shivering, he was okay, he’d learned. Once he stopped shivering, that’s when things became dangerous.

Right now, survival meant getting himself water because he hadn’t eaten or drank anything in nearly 24 hours, even though his feet were bleeding through his bandages and he never wanted to think or feel anything ever again. 

The dichotomy between his mind and body was maddening. All he wanted was to lay in bed and let his body atrophy until he didn’t exist any longer. The confirmation that his mom cared so little about him that she’d practically been privy to his abuse had decimated any desire to care about himself. 

If his dad beat him half to death and his mom cared so little that she let it happen, then what worth could he possibly have as a human being? 

_So, so worthless Riley. How did you not realize this earlier?_

But at the same time that he would be happy letting himself waste away into a forgotten corpse, his body kept demanding relief and sustenance. Right now it was demanding water because his lips were cracked to the point where he could feel them pull apart and taste the metallic blood on his tongue. 

It was frustrating enough that he wanted to pull his hair out, but he couldn’t do that either because of his stupid hands.

Resigned to the probability that he would have to see his mom or Brad and deal with the awkwardness of having broken all of their plates simply to ask for a glass of water, Riley, taking small, gingerly steps, made his way toward the stairs.

An uproar of jovial laughter gave him pause just as he stood at the top of the staircase. He stood frozen, listening closer. 

Utensils clanged against glassware and chairs being pushed in and pulled out were underscored by the din of a happy family conversing and enjoying each other’s company. 

He glanced up at the large ornate clock face on the wall and saw that it was just past six in the evening. So, dinnertime then.

Having been present for a couple of these affairs, though as an unwelcome observer on the sidelines, he didn’t have to think hard to imagine what he was missing out on. A pair of happy and proud parents and their three prized children sitting around a table, smiling, and laughing while they passed around food dishes and asked each other about their days. Brad encouraging Matt and Audrey to eat their vegetables while Sharon praised Andy for actually eating and not tossing his food to the vigilant Murph perched at attention next to his booster seat.

They sounded so peaceful, so normal. And did he really have a right to ruin that by showing up, ugly and disgusting to ask for water when he was supposed to be taking care of himself?

No. He didn’t have that right. 

Riley wasn’t family. And he never would be family. Fuck blood relations, because were they really worth a goddamn thing when your mother and father clearly think that you are the worst thing to happen to either of them?

“Mom, did I tell you that I got an A on my math test? Ms. Robins said I was the most-improved in class!” Matt’s exuberant voice cut through the idle chatter that occurred between bites.

“Great job Matty! I knew you could do it!” Came Sharon’s proud response. “That’s my boy!”

And at that, Riley fucking broke.

Riley wasn’t her boy anymore. All the hope he’d managed to keep alive, like guarding a weak flickering flame in a torrential downpour, extinguished the moment he realized that fact. He wasn’t her boy because she didn’t want him. Nobody fucking wanted him.

His mouth was still dry, but he didn’t want to drink anything. His stomach gnawed and growled angrily, but the thought of eating made him want to vomit. He desperately wanted his mom to just be nice to him, but he had no idea how to make that happen.

When Riley had realized that his mother had come back for him, he’d gotten his hopes up. And even when the start they’d had was rocky- she has a family and it doesn’t include you- he’d huddled over that little flicker of hope in the downpour. Then it got worse, and it was harder to keep the hope alive- I can turn this around. I can make her love me again- And then he realized that she’d known all along what kind of life she was condemning him to when she left him behind - you were wrong. She never loved you, not even back then.

A flare of visceral anger surged through him, but it wasn’t at his mom this time. It wasn’t even directed at his dad. 

_How stupid can you be Riley? You got your hopes up that she would want you. Love you even. She left you and never wrote. Never called. Never checked in to make sure that your dad hadn’t beaten you to death. Fucking nothing for eleven goddamn lonely years. You thought you could make her love you, but what do you have to offer? What have you ever had to offer anyone? Nothing. You’re not part of this family and you never will be. You don’t deserve family. Your parents knew that when you were five years old. Worthless piece of fucking garbage._

Turning around and slowly walking to his bedroom, feeling like he was trudging through quicksand, Riley was blankly surprised that he didn’t feel the all-too-familiar feeling of oncoming tears. 

He must be too far past heartbroken to even cry.

_____

“Knock knock,” a soft voice roused him. Riley couldn’t tell if he was asleep or awake, having spent hours after crawling back into bed staring blankly at the beige wall, doing his best to not think about how bleak things felt without the only hope he’d ever nurtured. 

Maybe he’d dozed off somewhere in there, but he had no way to know. The sky had turned black to purple to orange to blue as he laid still, trapped in the mire of his depression, unable to do anything other than take breath after godforsaken breath.

Lethargically, he turned over toward the disturbance and he was genuinely surprised to see his mother standing in the doorway. She had a nervous, flighty air around her as she wrung her hands together and wouldn’t look directly at him for more than a moment.

His dead eyes watching her was the only response he could muster. It was rude, sure, but it wasn’t like he was trying to make her love him anymore.

“I wanted to see if you wanted some breakfast,” she asked, a little too quickly and nervously. “Are you hungry?” 

Yes, he was. He was nearly 36 hours past hungry by this point, but intense hunger was a long-time companion of his, so he knew how to deal with the hollow ache. And at least now he could just hope it would kill him. 

Still, he nodded, and it was strange to see the relief that warmed his mom’s eyes when he did. It was also strange that she was offering in the first place, but since he’d decided after last night that there was no way he could gather enough scraps of courage to ask his mom for anything ever again, he reasoned that it was smart to take whatever is offered.

Instead of turning her back and walking out as he expected, she waited, looking concerned as he strained against muscles tight from disuse. She even reached out to help when he nearly fell backward while trying to sit up. Her hand felt so warm against his thin upper arm. But strange. 

She might have even whispered “I’ve got you,” but he was too dazed to tell for sure. And if he got his hopes up from that, well… Riley was done with hopes.

His mom walked slowly with him, eyes darting between him and where they were walking like she was watching a tennis match. This was strange, he decided. Dreaming? Maybe. Perhaps he had fallen asleep while staring at that stupid wall and he was dreaming this, and when he woke up he’d be all alone, still hungry, thirsty, and neglected.

In the kitchen, he was surprised to see not a single trace of the disaster that he’d left only the day before. The tiles were back to their white, pristine state, his blood not staining them. No piles of broken glass. Distantly, he wondered if they ever found the waffles he’d put in the toaster before the shit show went down and put two and two together about what happened.

“Did you do this on purpose Riley? Were you upset that we left so you threw another tantrum?”

The vivid memory of his mom’s accusation tasted bitter in his mouth.

“Here, have a seat,” Her soft voice was a stark contrast to the sharp accusation that echoed in his head. She motioned for him to sit at the kitchen island. He obliged, confusion growing as the tired fog lifted.

“How about I make some scrambled eggs?” She offered, already holding up the frying pan. 

Nodding slowly, Riley was rooted knee-deep in thick uncertainty. Their blowout argument after he broke the plates had only occurred yesterday, right? And then she’d given him a pain pill out of pity and sent him to bed so she wouldn’t have to see his pathetic face. 

Where was that woman? Because this woman, the one humming a distantly familiar melody as she cracked eggs into a mixing bowl and had a slight upturn of her lips wasn’t familiar. She may have been familiar to a version of himself from more than ten years before, but it was devastatingly apparent that neither of those people existed anymore.

Riley was painfully aware of every second that ticked by as breakfast was prepared. With every sizzle of butter and eggs in the pan, with the smell of bread in the toaster, and the pouring of a tall glass of orange juice, all Riley could bring himself to do was dread when this thin facade would crack and shatter just as the plates had, loudly and violently. Afraid that if he took a wrong breath or stared too closely, that the veneer would fall away and reveal the mom who screamed that she hated him because he was like his father.

But it didn’t happen when she cooked the food, nor when she sat down in the seat next to him, looking ready and almost eager to feed him. 

A loud warning of suspicion blared in his mind.

 _Not right. Not right. Not right. Something is wrong here. You don’t deserve ANY of this. You’re dreaming Riley. None of this is real. You don’t get to have nice things. Never forget that._

The skepticism must have broadcast on his face, because she gave him a reassuring smile as she scooped up the first forkful of steaming scrambled eggs, blew on them slightly and held them up for him to eat. Riley parted his trembling lips, still distrustful, but the heavenly taste of the warm food in his mouth sheared away at his cynicism. It had been so long since he’d had hot food, prepared just for him, and he was hungry.

Overall, this experience of his mom feeding him was a stark contrast to all of the other times. This time, she watched and waited until he finished each bite and was ready with the next, not busy watching her phone or with her other kids, making him wait minutes between bites. She was gentler too, the fork no longer colliding harshly with his teeth as she took care instead of hastily shoving the utensil in and out. She even asked him how things tasted, and if he wanted anything like more salt or pepper. 

Having someone care about his preferences, about what he wanted was something Riley was completely unaccustomed to. No one ever cared about what he wanted. He was too taken aback to ask for anything, except for when the plate was empty and she offered another helping.

“Yu-yeah, um yes please.” He mumbled, too surprised to properly form his words. Being offered more food by his mom was unprecedented. She never cared before if he was still hungry when his plate was empty. An empty plate meant that the meal was over and her job was done, no matter how Riley actually felt. 

And all she did was flash him a warm smile, say “coming right up” and crack another two eggs into the mixing bowl. 

Riley decided then, that even if he was dreaming and this wasn’t real, that he never wanted to wake up from it. 

Being cared for, lovingly, patiently, gently… it was… his throat felt tight and his eyes stung as the swell of emotion overcame him. He managed to quash it down just in time for his mom to sit back down in front of him with more hot food and a kind smile.

It was everything he didn’t deserve, but he would let himself have it for now. Even if this wasn’t a dream.

_____

Sharon fought to keep her calm, gentle demeanor worn easily across her face as flighty apprehension bled from every single pore of Riley’s skin as she made him breakfast and fed it to him. She knew that her actions were probably suspicious to him. After all, the way she was taking care of him was in direct contradiction to how she had treated him from the moment they were reunited. She was unhurried and attentive, watching him to make sure he was ready for the next bite, ensuring that the food wasn’t too hot.

_I suppose that was never a problem before because if the meal was hot, by the time I got around to feeding it to him it was cold._

If Riley took any issue with her suddenly turning an about face with how she took care of him though, he didn’t dare say anything. He ate like a starving animal, watching the diminishing plate with a desperation that made her ache with sadness. And when she offered seconds, she could tell he had to tighten the reins on his reaction to not appear frantic. 

His thin, almost gaunt appearance, with sharp, angular cheeks and limbs that looked like they belonged on a scraggly preteen instead of an almost seventeen year-old boy, begged her to understand just a fraction of what he’d been accustomed to while living with his father.

 _What did you do to our son, you evil bastard?_

As the second plate was nearly empty, Riley started to slow down his eating, chewing slower instead of inhaling quicker than she could keep pace with. He kept his eyes fixed to his lap and Sharon took the opportunity to study him without his own scrutiny aimed back at her.

Putting aside the hollow cheeks and sad eyes outlined by bruises that were beginning to yellow at the edges, Sharon noticed for the first time that his skin looked sallow and had a greasy sheen to it. Red patches of emerging acne spotted his cheeks and forehead. His hair fell flat and looked unclean and unkempt. A far cry from the soft tawny curls she’d known as a young mother. 

Riley also still wore the same outfit that he’d been in since the hospital. An old white Hanes t-shirt and black sweatpants that frayed at the cuffs. Unwanted offshoots from Brad’s old wardrobe. Clothes that would usually be worn for staining the deck, or just thrown in a bag for Good Will had become the entirety of Riley’s wardrobe. And that outfit hadn’t been changed in a week. 

Unconsciously, she wrinkled her nose in distaste, but it wasn’t at her son’s bedraggled appearance and stale odor.

_God, we really didn’t even do the basics for you, did we? But you never asked. You never asked us to wash your hair or change your clothes. Why didn’t you speak up?_

Sharon despaired over the realization of the extent of her neglect. She silently pleaded with her son why he wouldn’t have said anything, but the bleak epiphany squeezed her stomach like an icy fist. It came down to the stony impasse that they’d first reached in the hospital.

He wasn’t going to ask. And she wasn’t going to offer. 

That reasoning put as much fault on Riley as fell on her own shoulders for how uncared for that he was. But Sharon knew that wasn’t the truth. She was a mother, his mother, and it was her responsibility that he was cared for. It isn’t his fault that she didn’t offer her assistance. 

Would she hold it against Andy if he didn’t ask for dinner and then cried because he was hungry?

And besides, she lamented with a stabbing lurch in her heart, she hadn’t been forthcoming with her help.

_“Why don’t you ever want to help me?!”_

_“Can you help me with my pain medicine please?” - “I’m busy right now Riley. Ask me later.”_

_“I can get you something to drink, but I need to get Andy to preschool so you’re going to have to wait for breakfast.”_

Sharon couldn’t blame him for not asking for anything aside from the basics for survival, which she realized were the only things he’d requested. The best case scenario for her reactions to his requests for help before today was disinterest.

Lightly, she sat the fork against the glass flatware and cleared her throat.

“It looks like you could use a shower and a change of clothes,” she spoke up, then immediately wincing at the flash of hurt across Riley’s face and his physical recoil. She hadn’t meant it as a dig, but she backtracked. “I just think you’ll feel better after getting cleaned up and in some new clothes.”

Riley cautiously looked up from his lap, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I can’t shower by myself.” It looked like it pained him to even say that he wasn’t capable. Her heart ached. “And I don’t have any other clothes,” he whispered, ears and cheeks going tomato red, deep shame coming from him in droves.

Sharon cleared her throat, trying to swallow the dry mass of challenging emotions so she could put on her “get stuff done” mask and help her son.

“I’ll help you cover your bandages and wash your hair.” She said dutifully, hoping this would help lessen Riley’s deep shame, even just a little bit. “And we can get some more of Brad’s clothes for you to wear for now. We should probably get to work on getting you some clothes for yourself.”

Riley’s head only bowed deeper and his face flushed to a deep maroon. Sharon’s breath caught in her throat, not understanding what she’d done wrong.

“Come on, let’s go get you cleaned up.” Sharon stood up and held out her hand. Riley’s chocolate eyes were dark with skepticism as he watched it as though it was a weapon. But whatever battle he was fighting internally, he seemed to prevail as he shakily reached his own bandaged hand out for Sharon to grasp.

Humming in an attempt to soothe him, she guided him upstairs and into the master bathroom. 

As she rummaged around the cabinets, looking for the package of supplies to cover up the bandages (which had gone untouched since the nurses had given it to her at the hospital), Riley stood in the center of her and Brad’s bedroom, looking like an untethered balloon ready to blow away at the slightest wind gust. His chin was tucked into his chest and his arms curled around his midsection. He swayed slightly back and forth on his feet in a slow rhythm. Whether he was aware of his movement, she wasn’t sure.

Much the way Riley acted after their argument the previous day when she bandaged his feet, he was quiet, nearly unresponsive to her as she maneuvered him to sit on the bed so she could wrap the plastic around his hands. This time, however, he eyed her every move warily instead of with numb unresponsiveness. 

He complied with her soft-spoken requests, securing the medical tape around his wrists and then deciding that she needed to take the bandages off his feet as well. 

Riley didn’t actively respond to any of her ministrations, allowing himself to be moved and adjusted as she needed until it came time to remove his clothing.

“Okay, let’s get you undressed.” She tried to keep her tone light and casual, but she couldn’t keep the strained edge from creeping in. 

Riley stiffened like a statue. His shoulders shot up to his ears and she could see the stressed flare of his nostrils. Sharon retreated to give him some space and came back with a large fluffy towel that he could use to preserve his modesty.

He continued to sit still, his breathing labored and stress casting a sheen of sweat across his pale skin. Sharon sighed, realizing that if she was waiting for Riley to offer to start undressing himself, that she would be here for the foreseeable future. 

“Okay Riley, arms up.” She instructed, reminded intensely of undressing him as a toddler. 

_“Arms uppa Mommy!” “That’s right Ri!”_

He complied, raising his arms up slowly and stiffly so she could pull the shirt over his head. Shirt discarded, Sharon had to force down the gasp that threatened to erupt. From her limited vantage point, every expanse of skin she could see was marred with discoloration from scars, bruising, and scabbing. She wanted to look closer, to closely study every single mark that showed how her son had been wronged, but she was acutely aware of his distress. Each exhale was accompanied by a high-pitched whine that showed only the tip of the iceberg of Riley’s stress.

Determined, she moved on at a faster clip, assisting and looking away in equal measure as he removed his bottoms. She couldn’t blame him for leaving on the pair of old boxer briefs as she wrapped the towel securely around his waist, trying desperately to ignore the wide whip-like welts that spanned below the waistband. 

She led him into the large walk-in shower, uttering various phrases of nonsensical comfort to calm the keening whines that her son emitted. The shower’s entire back wall was a wide stone ledge, intended for seating. She maneuvered him so the back of his knees touched lightly against the ledge, and he sat without further instruction. 

Whether it was fear or shame, or a dismal combination of the two that kept his eyes downcast at the drain, preventing him from looking at her, Sharon couldn’t pinpoint. But she was crestfallen by how damaged her son looked and acted, and she couldn’t fully blame her ex-fiancé’s abusive tendencies. She was not innocent here. 

Riley jumped in fright at the sudden sound of water when she turned on the hand-held shower head. He looked up just long enough for her to read the abject terror in his eyes before he averted them, looking as though he was in trouble for his reaction. 

Sharon felt sick. This was the first real glimpse that she’d gotten at just how far-reaching Keith’s abuse was. She had a million and one questions for Riley, but now was not the time. Right now, he was vulnerable and giving her what little, fragile trust he had for her to bathe him. And it was on her to not break that trust.

As soon as the water warmed up, she started wetting him down, narrating her every move to him softly as though she were soothing a young child. If he was embarrassed by the treatment, he didn’t show it, staying silent and looking down at the saturated stones paving the shower floor. 

Attentively, she washed his hair, wetting it and squirting a generous portion of her own lavender mint shampoo in her palm before lathering up his brown locks. Sharon was pensive as she scrubbed the dirt and grease from him, thinking of how she wasn’t used to washing someone else’s brown hair. She was used to washing little blonde heads, as her children all took after their father strongly with their bright blonde hair and fair complexions. It struck her broadly that Riley looked more like her than Audrey, Matt, and Andy combined. 

She rinsed the suds from his hair, humming the same melody that she did when she gave Andy his baths. It borrowed comforting elements from “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and “Hush Little Baby,” along notes with her own maternal lullabies.

Next, Sharon moved on to washing Riley’s body, wiping the clammy sweat and detritus from his skin and hoping that it would help him feel better. Her eyes danced over his marked skin, trying not to focus on any particular wound until she came to his back, where it was inevitable that she would see all of it, whether she wanted to or not.

Riley’s back was a complex tapestry of red and brown weals, bruises, long scars, indentations, and small round burns. His ribs were visible and his pale skin looked stretched over the bones. Vertebrae poked out at alarming peaks down the span of his arched spine. 

Though none of the wounds looked fresh, all of them different shades of darkness against the nearly translucent skin, Sharon ran the warm water and soapy cloth down his back gently, taking care as though every wound was fresh and raw.

She could tell that Riley’s distress was growing more acute as she ran the cloth over his layered, criss-crossing scars, rising and falling with the crests and valleys of his bones and scar tissue. His body lurched with heavy hitched breaths. Sharon just tried to move quicker, humming louder both to drown out his whimpers and to hopefully distract him enough to finish the shower. 

She washed his arms, face, and stomach hastily, paying extra attention to exfoliate the areas with emerging acne, and gently glancing over his healing nose and still-heavily bruised ribs, whispering kind, assuaging phrases, meant to ease Riley’s trauma and distress. His eyes were red-ringed and tightly shut, the water beading off his eyelashes.

By the time she turned the knob on the shower, cutting off the stream of warm water, Riley looked both strung tightly enough to snap, and so wrung out that he could topple at any moment. Sharon grabbed the plush white towel from the oil-rubbed bronze towel hook and set to work on tenderly drying him. 

With the towel over his head, she rubbed her fingers against his scalp and squeezed the moisture out of his curls. She gave pause when she heard a high, keening whine give way to choked howls that wrenched from his gut. His back heaved with each cry and the desperate sounds echoed hauntingly off the shower walls. 

Reflexively, Sharon shushed him in the long, drawn out way that mothers comfort their children, but Riley must have taken it differently. With choked, gasping inhales, and broken, shuddering exhales, she realized, heartbreakingly, what was happening.

He’s trying to stop. He’s trying to calm himself down. 

Sharon, paying no mind to the wetness that saturated her own clothes, sat down on the ledge next to Riley and wrapped an arm around his back. With the towel still covering his head, she pulled it down to rest on her shoulder. 

“It’s okay Riley. You can cry.” A particularly heart-rending wail burst forth, sending chills down her spine. “You can cry Riley. You can cry.” 

Sharon rocked back and forth with her son sitting next to her, crying the loud, ugly sobs that she didn’t think he’d been allowed to cry in a long time. He cried and cried and cried, leaning harder into her the longer they stayed sat there, rocking, shushing, and sobbing together. When she thought he might be tiring, he would wail again, carrying on as she rubbed her cheek against the damp terry cloth. 

“Shhhh, Riley, shhhhh, Mom’s here…” She tried to placate him, but he only sobbed louder. Sharon felt each wail deep in her stomach, helpless to do anything other than ride out the storm with him.

The stones that tiled the shower were drying at the edges by the time Riley had cried himself out, nearly collapsing against Sharon as the pair sat flush against each other. 

And even though he wasn’t actively crying, only sniffling and coughing against the upset, she didn’t let go. She didn’t stop rocking her son.


	9. Cry

The intense sensory overload of the current situation with his mom was far beyond what Riley could reasonably comprehend. He was still trying to digest the sudden reversal in his mom’s behavior toward him by not only offering him food, but a second helping, that by the time she had led him up to the bathroom to give him a shower, he was just barely keeping pace with the goings on. 

Yesterday his mom had screamed at him, called him a problem child, and accused him of breaking her plates on purpose. And today, she acted like none of that had even happened. No, not just yesterday, he realized. She was acting like nothing had happened at all since he’d woken up in the hospital to see her next to his bed, promising him that she wouldn’t leave. His mom was acting like her own abandonment hadn’t actually happened and Riley was almost tempted to believe it and play along, simply because he was tired of being hurt.

Riley found it easy to follow along with Sharon’s guiding gestures like a puppet until she wanted him to undress. The sickening dread of someone asking to see his body was hard-coded by this point in his life, trained through a demanding curriculum of circumventing the questions and inquisitive looks from concerned doctors, nurses, and well-meaning teachers. 

But for his mother to see what he actually looked like… it brought an entirely new level of peril for him to tumble downward into. Sure, she had seen the gruesome stab wounds that decorated his hands, but that had been a last-line, no alternative situation for Riley. 

He sat frozen, unable to even take full breaths until “Okay Riley, arms up,” gave him whiplash with it’s nostalgic trance. If he closed his eyes, he was a little boy again, ready for bath time with Mommy instead of a ruined teenager just trying to not further disappoint the mother who’d abandoned him. 

So he complied, raising his arms above his head despite the protests from his tight, healing ribs. And when the white cotton whooshed over his head and he could feel the cool air on his torso, Riley couldn’t help the whines that rose from his throat without his consent. If his mother gasped or said anything about his unsightly appearance, he was too embedded in his own torment to notice.

Riley appreciated that she kept moving, kept guiding him without any uneasy questions that he would have no interest in answering. She removed the bandages on his feet, and the tatty, ancient sweatpants that were not his own. Standing in someone else’s underwear, cold, exposed, his hideous history of abuse on display, Riley couldn’t bring himself to undress any further without avoiding a complete meltdown.

Again, Riley was grateful to his mother as she wrapped a towel around his waist, not even asking about the threadbare undergarments. It felt strange, to have someone empathize with something that would make him uncomfortable. Normally no one gave a shit about what Riley wanted, or what would make him comfortable. It was what he was used to, so by the time his mom led him into the wide expanse of the shower and had him sit down on the stone shelf, he was already warming up to her care, no matter how suspicious he was of its intentions.

He was embarrassed when he nearly jumped out of his skin as the faucet turned on and the low drone of the water streams hitting the stone frightened him. Fear driven, he looked up at his mother, begging her to forgive his cowardly response, much the way he did when he mis-stepped when waiting for his father’s beatings.

Arms outstretched, hands flat against the wall. Feet shoulder-width apart. Every small hair on his body stood on end in agonizing anticipation. The belt buckle clinked behind him as it was pulled from its loops. The leather snapped against itself with the sudden deafening sound of a gunshot in the silence. He jumped from the terror and fright, and an evil cackle sent ice through his veins. 

_“The fuck did I tell you about being a jumpy little bitch?”_

_He turned around, taking his hands from their spread position on the wall, knowing better than to not turn toward his father when speaking. “S-sorry. W-w-won’ happen ‘gain.” he stuttered, the fear making his tongue trip over his words._

_“Damn right it won’t. Now get back into position.” Riley turned himself back around, putting his hands back on the wall and trying to quell the trembling that spread all the way from his hair to his toes._

_The leather struck out again, and the loud snap was followed instantly by the hot welt on his back. He felt the skin separate with each blow, and the blood trickle down until it coagulated on his back. But he didn’t flinch._

But his mom didn’t look angry at him, or reproachful to his fear. She just looked sad.

Riley fixed his eyes on the stone mosaic tiles on the shower floor, trying to find some distraction in how the water rushed over the different shades of slate and minerals and down the contrasting shiny metal drain. He didn’t want to focus on how pleasant it felt, being tended to so gently by anyone, nevertheless the mother he’d missed for over ten years. 

When she started washing his hair, he squeezed his eyes shut; not to avoid the sting of shampoo suds, but so he could pretend, even for a second, that time turned back, that history hadn’t happened. He was a little boy and his mom was washing his hair with the plastic cup that had a whale’s mouth as it’s opening. And the shampoo was Spider-Man themed, tear-free, and smelled like “Super Hero Berry Blitz.” She would tell him to tip his head back and close his eyes as she poured cup after cup of mild water over his head until it was free of soap, and he was free to play with the foamy bubbles as he pleased until they all popped the water went cool and it was time for bed. In that moment, he was loved and cared for without asking or begging for crumbs of either. 

But the water stream moved from his head to his back, and the bleak reality slammed him back to the present where his mom was giving him a long-overdue cleaning, he was sitting in his pseudo-step-father’s dirty underwear, and the woman who’d abandoned him to abuse was now staring directly at the hideous physical evidence of that abuse, washing it, touching the sensitive skin. 

The sensory overload hit him like a truck and then backed over him again as he felt the water pause over his back, his mother being extra gentle and soft with the cloth, barely glancing over the highly-sensitive skin. He hated that she could see every inch of his shame, but he gleaned some comfort from how kind she was in handling it. How she wasn’t rough, brusque, and inattentive as she usually was when handling him. Riley couldn’t imagine how distraught he would be if she handled seeing his abused body with the same disdain that she’d handled him with the rest of this week.

Riley went rigid at a sudden high-pitched squeak, and then the low, droning sound of the water gave way to a deafening silence. 

“All done,” came his mom’s pacifying voice. 

Before Riley could look up, a thick white towel was draped over his head and he could feel her fingers and hands working in a gentle, yet firm rhythm to dry his hair. 

All of his conflicting feelings about his mom’s sudden about face, the mortification of her seeing his heavily scarred torso, and the gentle warmth that spread through him when she washed his hair, all converged and struck him at once like a wrecking ball. 

The tears came before he was ready for them. He choked out one sob, then the next, feeling doused with humiliation at the situation. He was crying because his mom was drying his hair. No, he was downright sobbing because his mom was taking care of him. She shushed him and he cringed violently from the embarrassment.

Riley, feeling deeply chagrined at having lost control of himself, attempted to take several controlled, measured breaths, hoping to calm the oncoming crying fit and maybe retain even an ounce of dignity. The air was hot under the towel, and he couldn’t get a grip on himself, sternum shuttering with each failed attempt to stop the sobs.

“It’s okay Riley. You can cry.” 

His mom’s merciful voice muffled through the towel, and in that moment, every last defense, resolve, wall, and crutch that Riley held up shattered in an instant. 

No one had ever allowed him to cry before. 

A guttural wail erupted from his chest, emptying his lungs of their supply of air. And then he cried. About all of it. About everything that had been done to him, and hadn’t been done for him by the two people who were supposed to love him the most.

He cried for the abuse, the neglect, the abandonment, the disdain, the failure, the worthlessness… all of it swirled together into one monstrous amalgam that represented all of the hurt in his life. 

Riley cried until it hurt, and then he kept crying. He sobbed until he was exhausted, and then the tears kept flowing. He cried until he was sure he was going to pass out from lack of oxygen as the air under the towel became stifling, but he didn’t dare face his mom.

“Shhhh, Riley, shhhhh, Mom’s here…” 

And his mom, throughout his entire fit, stayed, rocking him, shushing him, staying right next to him. She never left. She never said she was busy or didn’t have time for him.

_No one ever has time for you, Riley._

And if anyone called for her attention or assistance while Riley was hidden under the chrysalis of a damp towel, she didn’t heed their request. She stayed with him, rubbing her hand up and down his arm, holding his head to her warm shoulder, providing the comfort that he’d been denied for so, so, so agonizingly long. She cared for him, the way only a mother could care for her child.

When Riley’s tears finally ran dry, and his breathing calmed, and he felt dizzy from the exertion from his fit of upset, his mom held him close.

_____

The bathroom was still and silent by the time Riley cried himself out. He was slumped against her like an exhausted prisoner finally freed from his shackles. Sharon didn’t know how long to stay there, her own clothes cold and damp against the stone, the towel covering her son’s head heavy with saturation. 

She didn’t know what her son needed, what sort of comfort would be best for him. Because she didn’t know him. At all. It was her fault that she didn’t know him. And that reality was a lower blow than anyone could ever deal her.

So she stayed there, holding him as his body grew heavier as he leaned on her for support. She didn’t know how much time had passed - it almost felt like her and Riley were in their own little time capsule in the shower next to each other, but when her pruned fingertips felt goosebumps emerging along his arm and Riley’s body started to tremble with shivers, she knew it was time to break the spell.

Sharon rubbed her hand up and down his arm in an attempt to ease both the chill and the transition from their cocoon to the real world. 

“Let’s get you dressed so you can get warm, hmm?” She suggested, leaning away from him. At first, Riley tried to move with her, to keep himself flush against her in a desperate attempt to keep whatever comfort he was absorbing from their interaction. But when she stood up on tight legs, hearing both knees pop, Riley shrunk down and abandoned his efforts, looking cowed. 

“Come on Riley, up,” she instructed with a hand gesture in front of his bowed face as he sat still as a statue. He responded to his name though, and stood up, keeping his arms tucked tightly into his sides to keep the moist towel around his waist in place. 

Her son followed her into the bedroom at a distance with wide brown eyes, appearing more like a timid, kicked puppy wanting to please its master rather than a teenage boy. He looked at her like he was waiting for her to grant permission for him to even breathe or blink. 

She couldn’t tell definitively if he was embarrassed by his prolonged crying fit or not.

Shaken, Sharon busied herself with rifling through Brad’s wardrobe, searching for clothes suitable to dress Riley. The two were massively different body types, with her husband tall and barrel-chested, and her son slender, shorter, almost looking paper-thin in the wrong light.

Smaller than he should be.

She wondered if maybe Matthew’s closet would be more suitable to dress her oldest son, but gave pause, not wanting to put Riley through the further humiliation of wearing his much-younger brother’s cartoon-themed t-shirts and briefs. 

“Oh well,” she muttered to herself, settling on another old t-shirt of Brad’s and a pair of pants she’d worn late in her pregnancy with Andy. She was sure Riley would be mortified to know he was wearing his mom’s old maternity pants, but they were low on options until they decided to actually buy him clothes of his own.

And buying Riley clothes implied a degree of permanence, which was something that Sharon truly hadn’t thought of since she brought him home. Her thoughts were always elsewhere, avoiding the haunting brown eyes that asked her for the bare minimum that she’d been so reluctant to provide. 

This was real. This was permanent. This wasn’t going to go away when Riley’s hands healed or when Keith got out of prison (that would be decades, according to the police officer she’d last spoken to.)

And if this was as real and permanent as Sharon feared (dreaded), then measures needed to be taken. And that included making sure her son was clothed.

Absently, she grabbed another old pair of Brad’s underwear, not wanting to draw too much attention to the decision before turning around with a handful of clothes.

Riley didn’t sway lightly this time. He stood, statuesque with the towel dripping onto her carpet, his chin tucked tightly into his chest. She couldn’t even tell if his eyes were open or not.

“Okay,” she began, trying to shake the nervousness that crept into her voice. “Let’s get this wet towel out of here and get those bags off your hands, okay?” Sharon asked, not waiting for an answer before closing the distance between them. 

It would be best for both of them for this to be done quickly, she reassured herself when Riley flinched back at her sudden approach.

Briskly, not stopping to ask for consent, boundaries, or eye contact, Sharon got her son changed into the new set of clothes. Changing his bottoms proved to be the most challenging, especially with Riley’s inability to grasp anything. She apologized and did her best to preserve her son’s dignity as she helped him remove the old wet garment and pull on the new, clean clothing. He was silent through the whole process, which relieved Sharon.

With an alleviating sigh, Sharon stepped back to give Riley some space. “All done. Do you feel better now?” 

Riley nodded with the limited range of motion allowed by his chin staying so close to his chest. She wasn’t sure whether he was referring to being clean with new clothes or having cried all his emotions out in one sitting. It wasn’t in her emotional capability to ask.

Sharon studied him closer, much the way she did at breakfast. Her son did look better after getting him clean. Instead of falling flat, his brunette curls stuck up at odd angles, still drying. His face didn’t shine with grease and old sweat, and he didn’t give off an unpleasant odor any longer. And the clothing, though each piece hung off him like he was more Halloween decoration than teenager, made him appear more comfortable, at ease even. 

Sharon moved to lead Riley out of her bedroom and back to his own where he could rest. She was sure he was exhausted, and frankly, so was she. Her emotional fuel tank was tapped and she needed some recharge time before Brad came back from his mom’s with the kids. 

But Riley’s voice, meek and raspy, cut through the silence.

“Mom, um…” He started, staring down at his feet where he flexed his toes idly, reminding Sharon that those needed bandaged up as well. 

“Yes Riley?” She prompted when he appeared to have hit a wall.

“Do you- um, do you have any uh, pic-pictures from uh, from before…” Riley trailed off, unable to finish his question as the shyness and anxiety took hold. But he didn’t need to. Sharon understood exactly what her son wanted. 

“Uh, yeah, I think so.” She replied, taken aback by the request. “Give me a minute. They should be around here somewhere…”

She was surprised, that was certain, Sharon mused as she went to her closet, pushing back the clothes to where she knew the object of Riley’s desire sat, dusty, untouched, and neglected for years. What made him think of this? And after his nuclear meltdown only minutes before, how did he think he had the emotional fortitude to take this on? Sharon wasn’t even sure she had the strength. 

But it was such a simple request, and one that she could fulfill easily. After this week of blatantly turning her back on Riley’s needs, she owed him this much.

Grasping the dusty surface, her fingers imprinting in the heavy film, she emerged to see Riley actually looking up for once, a timid hopefulness that broke Sharon from the inside out. 

Sitting down on the sturdy cedar chest that resided at the end of her and Brad’s bed, Sharon noticed Riley’s hesitance. She softly padded the wooden surface next to her and looked at him expectantly, granting the permission he apparently felt he needed before apprehensively sitting next to her.

Sharon put her hands on top of the nondescript box. It felt like it was filled with lead, sitting heavy on her lap. She was entirely certain that she wasn’t ready to see the box’s contents, but she couldn’t deny Riley the chance.

Like ripping off a band aid that should have been removed long before, she pulled off the box’s lid to reveal a disheveled stack of old photographs. Sharon stiffened, stomach roiling like a maelstrom as the memories, in living color, came back to her. While Sharon wanted to slam it shut and bury it back in her closet, never to be seen again, she didn’t move as Riley leaned forward tentatively, craning his neck to see more.

On top sat a photo of a brunette woman with a dated hairstyle and outfit, holding onto a cheerful brunette toddler who sat atop of a shiny carousel horse. The toddler’s face was the picture of childhood glee, and the woman watched him, glowing with admiration.

Sharon’s dread settled somewhat at the joy the memory reawakened in her. Riley’s quiet fascination next to her prompted her to explain what they were looking at.

“We took you to a carnival. You were maybe, two?” She guessed. “You didn’t want to do anything but ride on the carousel, so that’s what we did. All day.” Sharon chuckled as though it was still that same day. “I ran out of tickets and the sun was going down. You were so upset when we took you off, crying and throwing the loudest fit. But when we put you in the car, you were asleep before we even left the parking lot.”

Sharon chanced a look at Riley, who looked positively entranced. His red-ringed eyes were laser-focused on the photograph. She sat it next to her and started sorting through the rest of the pile.

A poorly-lit, grainy photo of a young Sharon cradling an impossibly small, red-faced bundle in her arms. Though clearly exhausted, hair a mess, shining with sweat, she smiled down at the bundle with an overjoyed rush that only a new mother could feel.

“The day you were born.” She added, rather unnecessarily, but Riley nodded in acknowledgement. 

A baby with a shock of dark brown curls was sitting in a highchair, wearing only a diaper. The majority of his face and large spans of his stomach and hands were covered in whatever dark purple mush that the photographer was trying to spoon-feed him. His mouth and eyes were wide with giddiness. 

If Sharon closed her eyes, she could hear the high-pitched laughter and imagine the shakes of his tummy as he giggled uncontrollably.

The same child looked a bit older, though he still possessed the large thighs and knee dimples that baby fat provided. He stood on two feet, looking shaky. He was slightly blurred in the photo, arms outstretched toward a woman who reached out right back at him, looking proud of the determination that played on the toddler’s face.

Mother and son were hugging in front of a Christmas tree lit with multi-colored bulbs, wearing matching red and green pajamas with a goofy reindeer on the front. Though it looked as though they were supposed to be looking at the camera for the photo, they only had eyes for each other.

Sharon could feel herself getting lost in the memories of a life that looked so happy through selectively chosen photos. She was tumbling down the rabbit hole of her past, remembering the happy little boy in each, but also the angry, threatening presence that always loomed either out of frame or behind the camera.

Nearing the end of the stack of photos, Sharon’s stomach clenched in panic as the edge of the bottom photo peaked out. She knew instantly what it was, though she hadn’t seen it in over a decade. The red and blue Velcro shoes that were visible were bought for a special occasion: Riley’s first day of Kindergarten. 

Sharon wasn’t ready to dig out the photo that would show a gap-toothed grinning boy with an oversized backpack perched on his back as he held up a piece of paper that said “Riley’s First Day of K!” The horrific memories of her own from that day were more than enough, and she was sure that Riley’s memories were no more pleasant than her own. Hastily, she dropped all the photos in her hand back on top, putting those shoes out of sight.

Curiously, she turned her head to look at her son, who had sat incredibly still the entire time. His jaw was hanging open and she wasn’t sure he’d blinked the entire time they sorted through the pictures. 

Sharon wasn’t sure what to say, so she kept quiet. Riley looked like he was processing too much information in too short of a time. But after maybe two or three minutes, when he finally spoke up, Sharon desperately wished that he hadn’t.

“It’s comforting,” his voice was barely above a whisper, and it was softer, not having the hurt, terrified edge she was used to. “Knowing that I used to be loved.” Riley reached out a bandaged hand and glossed a finger over the picture of the day he was born.

Sharon’s eyes blew wide and she stared at him, stunned by her son’s admission.

“That’s the difference, isn’t it?” He asked, but Sharon knew it wasn’t a question she was supposed to answer. “You used to love me, so you took care of me. You don’t love me anymore, so that’s why you don’t take care of me.” He reasoned as though explaining a math equation out loud to further understand.

Sharon fought to swallow the enormous knot that formed in her throat. She really didn’t want to have this conversation. Not now. Not ever, really. 

What does a mother say when her son asks her whether she loves him or not? 

_She says she loves him because that’s what mothers do! They love their children._

But the situation was far more complex than that. She knew it and Riley knew it. So she dodged.

“I just fed you Riley, and gave you a shower. I’m trying to take care of you.” She said non-threateningly, but it sounded weak, even to her own ears. Riley, whose gaze had been locked onto the pictures, pointed his eyes at her own, making purposeful eye contact for what she was certain was the first time.

“But you don’t want to do any of that.” He said matter-of-factly, shaking his head like he understood where her unwillingness was coming from. It made Sharon’s entire body ache with ravaging guilt. “It’s okay,” he averted his eyes back to the pictures. “I can tell.”

Sharon was shattered, broken beyond repair at her son’s brutal honesty that both pointed out her transgressions and absolved her of them. Her eyes stung, hot with tears. 

“Riley…” She said, but she didn’t have anything to follow. What was there to say? Nothing could make this right. Not right now.

Riley apparently felt much the same. Looking away from the box of pictures like it pained him, he stood up suddenly and began to move toward the doorway.

“I’m going to go take a nap. ‘M tired.” He said, mind obviously lightyears away from thinking about needing rest. 

Before he left, he paused and looked back at her where she sat, the incriminating box of photos still sitting in her lap like a smoking gun of proof that she didn’t love her son anymore.

“Um, th-thank you. For, uh, ya know… just, thanks.”

And then he left. Sharon didn’t dare move until she heard the door to his room click shut slowly. And when the house was completely silent, she swiped the box off her lap angrily and sobbed, much the way Riley had to her.


	10. Certainties and Chances

For the remainder of that day, Sharon, to her own deep shame, did not acknowledge Riley’s presence in the house. When Brad returned with the kids, he noticed the distress etched in every crease in her tense face and asked her what happened. She couldn’t respond. Sharon couldn’t recount the breakfast, the shower, Riley’s sobbing and her comfort, and the pictures. She didn’t want to think about his face when he told her that she didn’t love him anymore. It was too hard to deal with, so she didn’t. She told Brad that they would talk about it later, and then turned to her children and asked what they wanted for lunch.

She put on the mask of being a good mother as she made pizza rolls for Audrey and Spaghettios for Matt and Andy. Typically, she wouldn’t submit to making different lunches for the kids, making them decide between each other what they wanted, but she didn’t have the heart to say no to them today. Not when Riley’s sad, resigned eyes appeared every time she blinked.

So for the rest of the day, she put her everything into being the best mother she could to Audrey, Matt, and Andy. A shopping trip to the mall so Matt and Audrey could get some new clothes. Early dinner at a restaurant as a family with dessert for everyone, even Andy who devoured his ice cream brownie with gusto.

And when they came home, exhausted and faces sore from smiling, it was well after dark. As Brad offered to go get Andy ready for his bath to get the sticky ice cream mess cleaned up, Matt and Audrey fought over what movie to watch. 

Sharon snuck away from their fight, tiptoeing up the stairs just far enough so she could see the guest bedroom. The door was closed, just as it had been when they left. And there was no evidence that Riley left his bedroom at all. Sharon wasn’t surprised, but her mind wasn’t put at ease either. She turned around to go back to movie night with her son and daughter, putting Riley at the back of her mind.

He only existed as a ghost, condemned to haunt the confines of the bedroom which he inhabited. As long as that bedroom door stayed closed, she was afforded the privilege of not acknowledging him.

_____

Riley drowsily watched the neon green numbers on the alarm clock change for the umpteenth time, blinking, not really comprehending what time it actually was. The sky had gone dark, he knew that much. And for much of the day, the house was entirely silent. No disturbances could be heard outside of his reclusive hiding space. Vaguely, he recalled hearing the garage earlier in the afternoon, but he hadn’t put too much thought toward it at the time. 

Did the family leave him alone again? Probably. Did he actually care? No, he was too tired for that. 

Distantly, Riley wondered if he was the driving force behind them leaving. Were they too disturbed by his depressed, lurking presence behind the closed door that they had to go somewhere else to enjoy themselves? The thought seemed outlandish, unlikely, but the lines between reality and surreality had begun blurring hours before. Maybe they’d blurred when he was crying in the shower, or maybe it went all the way back to when his mom offered him breakfast. 

Whether he was the cause or not, they were gone, and he was alone. This time, he didn’t even entertain the thought of leaving the guest bedroom. Hunger and thirst, and even the urge to pee only played faintly in his head, like a radio station with poor reception where you could barely hear the tune behind the white noise. 

Not worth listening to. 

So Riley stayed, sprawled on his stomach, watching the changing numbers on the clock without really connecting them to how much time had actually passed. 

Deep under layers and layers of subconscious, Riley was taking stock of the absolute certainties in his life. It was a habit born of necessity, one that he learned incredibly young in order to survive in the early days before he understood the reality that for irregular intervals, for durations that had no predictability, his father would just up and leave him without giving him any warning.

Back then, he’d taken stock of how much food was in the house. How he was going to get to and from school. Whether there were any upcoming events that it would be painfully obvious that Riley’s dad was just gone. Taking inventory of those things was comforting, it let him know what to expect when his life felt like a runaway bus with a brick on the gas pedal. It let him know whether he was going to survive, and how uncomfortable he could expect to be.

Right now, he listed off the uncertainties, and they were radically different than they’d been in the past, even just weeks before.

Certainty number one: Riley’s mother did not love him. She had in the past, the pictures told him that much, but it was abundantly clear now that that was no longer the case. Whether her feelings of maternal love for her son had simply faded over time and absence, or whether Riley had committed some unknown, heinous offense to make her stop loving him… well it didn’t matter. It didn’t change the fact that his mom just didn’t love him anymore.

Certainty number two (well, maybe certainty One B): His mother had knowingly, complicitly left him to a life of excruciating abuse and neglect. She’d looked at him when he was five and determined that he wasn’t worth taking with her to escape Keith and start a new life. So yeah, maybe that one could be lumped in with the first certainty.

Certainty number three: Riley was now completely, desperately, utterly on his own now. Now, Riley was used to being lonely. He’d been friendless for the majority of his life, his peers not interested in interacting with the dirty, uncared-for runt that never smiles. And the rest of his life was a revolving door of brutal, sadistic beatings and punishments, and cold, desolate abandonment. But, even in those darkest of times, he’d fiercely protected the idea that maybe his mom was out there somewhere, missing him and wanting him. Now, Riley knew the absolute falsehood of that idea. His father was in prison, his mother didn’t love him, and he had nobody else in his life. 

It was getting difficult for Riley to not let the jagged claws of depression sink deep into his skin and muscle, and pull him under. 

Certainties Riley. Concentrate on the certainties. Figure out how you’re going to survive this. What are the facts and how are you going to deal with them to keep yourself living?

Okay, certainty number four: His father was gone and he would never have to see him again. Riley acknowledged that he’d been so distracted by the issues of helplessness with his mother that it hadn’t properly sunk in that he was no longer under the thumb of his heavily abusive father. Though his life was about as stable as a toddler standing on a pool mat, there was a certain weight lifted from his soul at knowing that he wasn’t walking into a beating or to see that his father had left again for who knew how long this time, leaving Riley to scramble to pay rent before the landlord came knocking. Or the power before it went dark and cold in the winter. Or the water before that was cut off and Riley had to shower by using the sinks and hand soap in the bathroom at school to avoid being bullied for smelling bad. So, yeah, living in a house where he is unloved and had to watch a family love each other and know that he’s unwanted hurt, a lot, but physically it would be easier to survive. Though he didn’t know if he actually had a place here…

_Keep it to certainties Flanagan. Don’t make me tell you again._

Certainty number five: He wouldn’t be helpless forever. The current state of things, with his hands wrapped up in bandages so thick he could hardly see his fingers, unable to feed himself or even get a goddamn glass of water independently, wouldn’t last. It had been a week since he’d been discharged from the hospital, and the doctor had said after two weeks they would remove the bandages. He wouldn’t have to rely on someone who didn’t want to take care of him for much longer. Riley could make it another week. One more week and he could go back to taking care of himself. And then? After that? Well, Riley didn’t know.

Sometimes, the uncertainties were even more crushing than the certainties.

_____

Several hours had passed since Riley last heard any signs of life from outside the bedroom door. He remembered hearing Andy’s bathtime, Sharon telling Audrey and Brad what they needed to have ready for the upcoming school week starting tomorrow, and Sharon asking Brad whether or not he’d set the alarm system. Then things had gone quiet. 

Riley’s room was dark, darker than it had been last week. No moon shadows sliced through the closed blinds, leaving the only source of light as the alarm clock that he’d been kind of sort of watching. Certain needs were becoming impossible to ignore, pushing through the fuzzy reception until they blared harshly against his eardrums. 

Riley tried to bring himself back, putting effort into blinking rapidly to restore moisture in his dry eyes. He closed his cottony dry mouth to control his raspy breathing. For the first time, he associated the bright green numbers with a time.

2:08 a.m. 

Oh, Riley thought, surprised, so it had been more than 12 hours since he’d crawled onto the bed and let the dissociation take hold. Anything to forget that he’d let himself be vulnerable in front of his mother. Naked, in both the emotional and physical tenses. And then, directly after that, he figured out that his mom didn’t love him anymore. 

Don’t dwell on that. It doesn’t do you any good. That is a fact, a certainty. You acknowledge it and its purpose in keeping you alive, and then you MOVE ON.

No wonder his bladder was screaming and his mouth felt like he’d swallowed a bunch of cotton balls. He needed to take care of some things, no matter how easy it would be to lay in bed and let his muscles atrophy until he couldn’t move any longer. 

It wasn’t ideal, doing this in the middle of the night. He risked waking someone up and drawing attention to himself. But, Riley also knew it was better than struggling to take care of himself under the scrutinizing glares of the happy family that he didn’t belong to. 

With monumental effort, Riley heaved himself off of the bed and made his way to the bathroom to take care of his body’s most urgent demands before shuffling, as quietly as he could toward the stairs. He took them one at a time, leaning against the railing to keep his balance, praying that they didn’t creak loudly enough to wake someone.

At the bottom of the stairs, Riley let out a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding before resuming his mission. Water. He just needed water and then he could go back to the bedroom, close the door and pretend that he didn’t exist.

Your mom is probably pretending the same. She didn’t check on you ONCE after you left. She was so concerned about you being hungry for breakfast, but after she saw what a fucking distaster you are, she changed her mind. You’re nothing to her. You’re nothing to anyone.

After the disaster with the plates, Riley thought better than to try his luck at taking a glass cup out of the cabinet. But Andy’s plastic Paw Patrol cups, those he couldn’t break. With his pinky finger, he nudged the blue cup, decorated with pawprints and some dog dressed as a police officer until it fell down. Desperately, he tried to catch it, or at least break its fall onto the counter, but he wasn’t quick enough and the plastic thud echo was deafening in the night.

Riley froze, pausing even his breathing as he put all his efforts into listening for activity upstairs. For any indication that he was about to get caught. Silently, he counted to 100 before letting himself breathe again, opening his eyes, and unfurling his shoulders. 

He just needed water. He couldn’t fuck up getting water. 

Determinedly, he moved over to the refrigerator and pressed the child-size cup against the dispenser. When the fridge gave a loud, low rumble like it was going to dispense ice, he pulled back like it had burned him. Riley huffed, frustration setting in at struggling so much to satisfy such a simplistic need. He grimaced when he stuck his finger out to pick water instead of ice and the fridge dinged in response.

_Can’t something be on my side for once?_

The small cup didn’t take long to fill and Riley, holding the cup between his two bandaged hands like mitts, downed it in one gulp. He refilled it eight times before feeling satisfied enough to be done. He clumsily sat the cup in the sink, grateful when it stayed upright before turning to leave the kitchen. 

But Riley’s stomach had other plans. His midsection cramped, feeling like it was folding in on itself and eating itself at the same time. An audible gurgle roared as he wrapped his arms around himself, paralyzed by the sudden attack. 

Apparently the thirst, once satiated had given way to hunger. 

Riley wanted to go back to bed, desperately. He looked toward the dark hallway that would lead him back upstairs, lamenting the quick escape he’d hoped to accomplish. This was an in-and-out mission. But his stomach wouldn’t be ignored, and Riley knew that if he went back to bed now that he would drive himself insane with the hunger until he was reduced to begging his mom to let him eat. 

And after she hadn’t refuted him when he told her that she didn’t actually want to help him, he wasn’t quite eager to be reduced to begging her for anything.

Heaving a sigh, he turned back around and went toward the freezer. The waffles would have to do. They were easy and fast, and most importantly, they didn’t require him to procure a plate. 

Just as he reached down to grab the handle, he heard a click and a low light illuminated the kitchen around him. His spine stiffened in fear and he hesitated before righting himself to see who had caught him.

Riley’s mother stood at the arched entryway, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest. Riley felt like a naughty child who’d been caught stealing from the cookie jar. Guilt and regret fought for dominance in his gut, overtaking the hunger for a few brief moments before he found his voice.

“Sorry,” he murmured, looking away from his mom for fear of her reproach. But his fear was unfounded, as Sharon walked over to him, her slippers giving a muted shuffle against the hard tiles. When he looked back up at her, he saw no anger or criticism, only curiosity.

“Did you need something Riley?” The way she asked was calm and kind, much the same way she’d offered breakfast the previous morning. 

Suddenly he was insecure as the difficult memories and their accompanying emotions from their last interaction swarmed him. Things couldn’t be okay after that. How could she be acting normal?

“H-hungry,” he said, unable to help himself from curling into his default defensive position of arms wrapped around himself and shoulders hunched. Again, however, his mother subverted his expectations by letting out a fond laugh and walking toward the pantry.

“I figured,” she said, nothing even approaching annoyance in her voice. “Sit down, I’ll make you something.” She looked back at him, practically on his haunches in preparation for any incoming attack. Riley was slow to respond, watching her cautiously as she grabbed a loaf of bread from the pantry. When she noticed his hesitance, she extended her invitation once more.

“Come on, sit.” She motioned to the chair against the island. “I’ll get you some chocolate milk while you wait.” Riley almost melted at the decadent offer. Chocolate milk sounded heavenly to his vexed stomach. He complied, sitting down at the counter, and, as promised, Sharon placed a tall glass of chocolate milk in front of him. It even had a straw so he could drink it by himself. 

Riley waited until his mom’s back was turned before taking a long draw on the straw, savoring the cold sweetness without any scrutiny. Still drinking, he heard pots and pans clang against each other and more ingredients being withdrawn from the refrigerator. 

It wasn’t until he heard the sizzle of butter bubbling in a pan that he felt okay enough to stop drawing on the straw. By then, the glass was nearly empty, but he didn’t regret drinking it so quickly.

Nervously, he chanced a question, the warm glow of his intense hunger being relieved softening his hard resolve.

“What are you making?” He wasn’t even sure she could hear him over the din of her food preparation, but she looked back at him caringly anyway.

“French toast. It was your absolute favorite when you were little. You used to drown it in as much syrup as I’d give you and then you’d be bouncing off the walls for the rest of the day.” She gave an adoring laugh, clearly easily caught up in the fond memory.

“Is it still your favorite?” She asked. Riley’s stomach plummeted, any warm feelings he had from hearing his mom recount his childhood wiped away at the question that he didn’t want to answer.

“I-uh- haven’t had it since, um, since you made it for me.” Most of his embarrassed admission fell out in a jumbled heap. He hoped his heated face wasn’t overly apparent in the dim light of the kitchen. Sharon looked away from the pan she was tending to, looking at him disconcertedly. Thankfully, she let the subject drop.

Riley didn’t have the emotional endurance to explain to his mom (who doesn’t love you, remember?) that his father stopped cooking for him after she walked out. How, at five years old, horribly confused about where his mommy had gone, Riley was forced to figure out how to feed himself breakfast and dinner. At least lunch wasn’t a worry, as their low income bracket enabled him to receive that meal free. He hadn’t even been able to reach the countertops, nevertheless the microwave or any of the ingredients in higher cabinets. But the competence had come with time.

_You have to take care of yourself Riley._

“Here you go Ri,” His eyes widened to saucers as a large plate of French toast was placed in front of him, drenched in syrup with pats of butter on top of each heavenly-looking slice, but it was his mother’s words that drew Riley’s attention the most.

“Ri,” the affectionate nickname that his mom used when he was little. It had been so agonizingly long since he’d heard it. The simple syllable sounded like a harmonious melody singing in his heart. His mom had said it so casually, without regard, but to Riley, it was the world. It wasn’t “Riley” with a sharp, jagged R that he’d grown up with from his father. It was soft, comforting, a token that represented better times.

He swallowed the thick emotion, hoping it didn’t show on his face as his mom sat down across from him and began to cut into the French toast. 

His stomach gave a supplementary growl at the sight. It looked amazing, so amazing that, for the moment he could put his confusion about his mother on the backburner. He would focus on the inconsistency and the emotional whiplash later. And he would put her affectionate moniker in his back pocket to savor later too. He didn’t know how long he would need it to sustain him for.

As his mom began to feed him, Riley’s mouth was already open before the fork even left the plate. The French toast was everything that he wanted it to be. Hot, sweet, savory, and plentiful. Sure, it jerked him back to patchy, frayed memories of being a little boy and devouring a plate of it for breakfast as his mom watched in the background, smiling at him. But Riley urged his subconscious to stay in the present and enjoy the meal for simply what it was, made just for him by his mom.

They were quiet, the only sounds being the fork and knife against the plate and Riley’s chewing. But soon enough, before Riley was ready (though his stomach said the opposite), the plate was empty and all that remained was a pond of leftover syrup.

Just as he was wondering if that was the end, if she was going to dismiss him and send him back to bed, his mom spoke up in a tone he wasn’t expecting.. It was curious, unguarded, and most importantly, it reminded him of how she spoke to him when he was five. 

_When she still loved you._

“I never really gave you a chance to explain, um, what happened with the plates.” Riley reflexively went on the defensive again, every memory of that disaster unpleasant to recall. Shattering glass, shards in his feet, Brad advancing on him, his mom screaming that he was just like his dad, and his own complete loss of control - he slammed his eyes shut against the assault.

In contrast to the maelstrom thundering inside him, he only shrugged his shoulder. “Doesn’t really matter.” But his mom wasn’t deterred by his lackluster response.

“Yes, it does matter. I yelled at you and accused you. And I didn’t wait for the whole story.” Riley stared down at the syrup-covered breakfast plate, flummoxed by the opportunity to explain himself. It was a rare, almost extinct occurrence for him. He kept his eyes fixed on the plate, fully aware of the fragile thread upon which he walked, and knowing with certainty that if he tried to look at his mother, it would snap in an instant and send him plummeting downward into an abyss of stuttering and choking on his words.

“I- I was hungry. And um, you guys weren’t here. So uh, I- uh tried to get a plate down. And I, they, um, my hand, it… theyallfelldown.”

Okay, so he still stuttered over his words, and the last part of it was rushed beyond recognition, but at least he was able to actually form words instead of choking on his voice completely.

Riley’s peripheral vision caught Sharon nodding slowing. Maybe in understanding? Surely not. He broke her plates.

“They all fell down?” She repeated back to him in a much slower cadence. He nodded quickly to concur. 

“Well,” she began with a substantial inhale. Riley braced himself for the potential gutting heading his way. “I’m sorry for accusing you Riley.” Expectations subverted, he looked up at his mom. “I was just remembering the night before and I jumped to conclusions. That’s no excuse though. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

Riley tried to absorb the apology, but it was like an uncertain toddler trying a strange new food for the first time. He wasn’t used to it, and he didn’t know how to react to it. It was too foreign for him to properly take in.

Sheepishly, he replied with a shrug, “I yelled back.”

In a typical familial circumstance, this is when the parent would say something along the lines of “But I’m the parent, I should know better than to yell.” But their family situation was anything but typical, heartbreakingly so, and they both knew it, so the silence reigned supreme.

Riley wasn’t sure if it was the nostalgia from the breakfast food, or if something about a late night (or rather, early morning) conversation just inspired courage and candor in himself, but he couldn’t help the burdening question that bubbled forth.

“Do you- do you really think I’m like him?” Instantly, he wanted to take the question back, but it hung in the air. He stared at the hem of Brad’s t-shirt, tugging on it with his fingers and ignoring the throbbing aches from his wounds with each motion.

“What do you mean Ri?”

There was that name again. It weakened him just as much as the first time she said it. Riley took in a lungful of air and then pushed it out. His hands shook now.

“Um, you said that I’m just like- that I’m-” He nearly gags on it, risking losing his treasured meal. “That I’m like dad. That you didn’t like helping me because I’m like him.” 

Riley is surprised at his concise, unbroken language. And having the question out feels like something of a relief, though he doesn’t know if he’s prepared for the response.

Sharon takes a measured breath. Riley doesn’t blink, fuzzy squiggles and lines appearing in his vision as he stares down at the stretched white shirt. 

“I never should have said that Riley. That was wrong of me.”

Riley swallowed grimly. It was weak, not even an apology. He furrowed his brow, knowing that she didn’t understand the brutalizing impact that her declaration had had upon him. Riley wanted her to understand, even if it was only a fraction of what he felt.

Brazenly, he locked his brown eyes upon their matching set. 

“He used to say I was like you. Not in a good way or anything.” He began, shaking his head. “But if I did something he didn’t like, or if he saw some flaw, he would always say it was because of you. Or that it came from you.” Riley blinked rapidly, warding off the early warning signs of tears. He didn’t want to cry again.

“So when you said that,” he emphasized the word like it was profane and ill-tasting in his mouth. “All I thought was that when both of my parents looked at me, all they saw was something they hated.” The spell of courage broken, Riley hung his neck like a piano had been dropped on it.

“I’m sorry Riley, again. I let my anger get the best of me, and that was really unfair of me to say-” She broke off with a sneer. “No, not unfair. It was wrong for me to say that about you. I let my anger get the best of me, and I took it out on you. It is harder to control myself when I’m under a lot of stress, and…” she trailed off, cutting off her train of thought, to Riley’s relief. A parent gets mad and takes it out on him. He didn’t need to hear more.

_Story of your life. Why did you think this would be different?_

“And it’s a stressful time.” He filled in the void she’d left behind. 

From what he could see from his craned point of view, her hair moving up and down probably meant that she was nodding, agreeing with what he said. Unconsciously, he nodded in kind.

“I get angry too.” Riley said, catching even himself off-guard at his frankness. It certainly wasn’t his strong suit.

“Sometimes, I get really, really mad. And I- I don’t know how to handle it. I don’t want to be like him, to let it take over and hurt people,” he pulls harder on the hem of the shirt, the searing pain from his hands somewhat grounding. He’s startled when a hand softly lands on his forearm. It feels like an electric shock.

Riley looks up at his mom, who’s expression was bleeding sympathy and pity. He can’t continue, too blocked.

“Then you’re already better than him.” 

Riley instantly felt the tears spring forward, unable to even think about trying to hold them back. It was the nicest thing anyone had said to him in… well as far back as he could remember. And it came from his mom. He was winded with disbelief.

“Really?”

She smiled, “Yes. Keith was always the kind of person who didn’t think twice about hurting others, whether it was because he was angry, or just to get his way.” 

Riley’s mouth was agape at her honesty. He’d never heard much about his father. All he knew was that the angry, violent man despised him and despised his absent mother even more. To hear his experience corroborated, it was almost disorienting in how surreal it felt.

“So why were you with him?” He wasn’t sure if he even had a right to ask such a personal question, but curiosity got the better of him. And again, the night sky made it feel like they were in a secluded bubble, free from consequences or the outside world. No topic felt off-limits.

“He wasn’t like that all time, especially for the first several months that we were together. I really didn’t even know about- about his issues,” she treaded lightly over the word. “Until I was about to give birth to you.” 

It was Sharon’s turn for candidness apparently, Riley thought, wondering how much she would say if he let her continue indefinitely.

“And once a child is involved, things…” she let out a mirthless laugh. “Things get a lot more complicated when there is a child involved.” She sounded regretful, but her words rubbed Riley the wrong way. Was it supposed to be a defense of her walking away? An explanation? She was almost flippant with how she said it, how she described the situation that led to her abandoning her five-year old son with no warning to a hellish life.

Walking away from me was complicated? Just because it wasn’t easy for you, is that supposed to make it better? I was five and my mommy was GONE. But sure, it was complicated for you.

Riley’s face turned sour and the atmosphere in the kitchen suddenly felt cooler.

Both Riley and Sharon looked away from each other, going to their separate corners to try to find a way to move forward. 

It felt like a lifetime of heavy silence had passed by the time Sharon spoke again.

“I owe you an apology Riley. Another one. This past week, taking care of you…” She looked regretful and at a loss for words, but Riley wasn’t going to supply them for her this time. “Well, you were right. I didn’t want to.” 

If it was even possible, Riley dropped his head even further, corresponding with the nosedive his heart was taking from his chest. That wasn’t what he’d been expecting. 

“But that was never a reflection on you Ri, or anything you’ve done.” She seemed to notice the grim turn his morale had taken with her upsetting words, rubbing her hand up and down his forearm in a pacifying motion. A feather-light finger under his chin prompted him to look up at her.

“It was my own issue Riley, and I let them get in the way of properly taking care of you. I was too- stubborn to push my issues aside to care for you when you needed it the most. So, for that, I am deeply sorry Ri.” 

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe her, or that he doubted her sincerity. Sorry just didn’t feel like enough to repair numerous times that he’d been rejected, forgotten, left behind, or yelled at this week. Bandaids on bleeding bullet holes. 

Riley couldn’t forgive so easily. The transgressions had been too scathing, like a widespread burn stretching across his body. To forgive her without letting her know, even a little bit, how he felt when she would look right past him like he didn’t exist, would feel like accepting that he deserved it. 

Tentatively, he twisted his fingers in the shirt again, wishing he could wring them together to distract himself. Determined to try to do right by himself, with much of the same spirit as when he refused to stay down as his father beat him, he spoke up.

“You forgot me sometimes.” So it wasn’t the laser-pointed dagger of accusation he felt she deserved, it summed up his most severe, deepest-seated fear and insecurity: that he was worthless and that’s why he was constantly abandoned, forgotten, and left behind.

Riley chanced a glance up at his mom to gauge her reaction. Her face was stricken and her eyes shone with regret. He couldn’t help the twinge of satisfaction, as guilty as it made him. 

“I’m so sorry for that Ri. You deserved better.” Her hand barely glanced off his arm at this point. Each kind touch felt so foreign, and Riley had a difficult time deciphering whether he wanted more from his mom or if her touch was only cruel bait that he was afforded in small quantities. 

“Life can be hectic around here, between Brad’s overtime, your brothers and sister, and Murph,” she paused, trying to find her words. “And I guess I pushed you to the back of my mind when things got too hard.” 

Riley’s bottom lip trembled. Her explanation was cutting deeper than the offense that made it necessary. He was never anyone’s first priority, that much he’d always been aware of, and he was used to that. Still, it was hard hearing from his mother that she purposely put him at the bottom of her list, below even the beloved family pet. An ugly emotion settled in his bones and his French toast, previously a scrumptious reprieve, now sat like concrete in his gut.

“I’m not excusing my actions Riley.” Sharon offered, perhaps backtracking when she’d seen how upset he was becoming. “I just want you to understand that none of my actions toward you, or inactions, rather, were about you. It is all on me, okay?”

His mom’s desire for him to respond acquiescently was transparent. But Riley was nonplussed at what she wanted. Sure, her explanation was meant to make him feel better about being forgotten, to make him understand that when she turned her attention away from him without a second thought, that it wasn’t his fault. But that didn’t ease the all-consuming sadness he’d felt whenever she would drop him with the ease and relief of a heavy suitcase after a long vacation. Whenever she left in the middle of when she was supposed to be helping him, or when she’d promise to help him with something he’d had a hard enough time asking for in the first place, and then he’d hear her leave with one of his siblings and Riley would be forced to dry-swallow the pill that she’d left him behind again.

But then again, who was he to really turn down her offer of an apology, even if it was weak and flimsy. It wasn’t like he was swimming in apologies. So what if it really wasn’t the apology he wanted? Keeping in track with how he’d survived an acutely neglectful upbringing, Riley knew that he had to take what he could get.

“Can we try to start over Ri?” 

Riley’s head snapped up from it’s perpetually craned position, alarmed by the unexpected proposition. 

Start over? To when, exactly? To the hospital when he’d broken down crying in front of her because she had a family? Or on the drive home when she’d called him violent and made it abundantly clear that the home he was staying in belonged to her and her family, and that did not include him? Or did she want to dig up ancient history, excavating layer upon layer of skeletons he kept in his closet, artifacts of suffering and abandonment until she recovered a happy little boy in Captain America clothes who was excited for his first day of Kindergarten, but more than anything just wanted to stay with his Mommy?

Riley would be lying to say he wasn’t tempted to just immediately agree with his mother’s proposition. Her face was pinched with hope and anticipation of his response. He was paralyzed by the splitting decision of either letting his mom off the hook for all the hurt he’d undergone since waking up from surgery, or advocating for himself, and letting her know the extent of his suffering. 

He ultimately decided on a compromise between the two extremes. Sharon knew, well, enough about the physical side of the abuse he’d undergone. And it sounded like she knew first-hand what a monster Keith truly was under the shiny veneer he had around everyone except for his family. 

But she didn’t know about the thing that hurt worse than the punches, kicks, chokes, burns, whippings, and hell, even the stabbing. The constant cycle of abandonment did far more extensive damage to him. Bruises and burns faded, eventually the split skin on his back would mend itself back together. But the gaping, bloody, rotting expanse of a wound in his soul from realizing that neither his mother or father cared about him enough to make sure he didn’t starve or freeze to death, that they didn’t see enough worth in him to even attempt to take care of him? Well Riley carried that with him every agonizing moment of every interminable day.

Riley had to know something before he took her vague proposal to “start over” and pretend that the wrongs and missteps were erased from their history.

“Why didn’t… why didn’t you check on me yesterday at all? You guys left me behind again…” Riley cringed at how childish and insignificant his complaint sounded against the silent background of the kitchen, the only background noise being the low whirr of the refrigerator. 

The hope in Sharon’s eyes swirled into regret and sour guilt. Her lips parted as though she willed an explanation to come, but none did. Maybe she wasn’t expecting for that to be his grievance? Riley didn’t know. But he wanted her to understand why being left behind cut Riley deeper than any knife embedded in his hand.

“He used to leave. A lot.” He began, urging the words forward before his courage waned and he lost the words in a dank pit of low self-esteem. “It started when I was, I don’t know, eight maybe? It was only for a couple of days at first. I’d come home from school and there wouldn’t be anyone there, and then it would get dark and I’d try as hard as I could to stay awake because I was afraid of being alone at night. Eventually I’d pass out while looking for him to pull into the driveway. I’d wake up and still be by myself. After a few days he would come home like nothing happened. I’d ask him where he’d gone, and he’d tell me it was none of my business. And when I’d ask him to please not leave again, he would tell me that that was up to me. That if I could be a good enough kid, he wouldn’t leave.”

Riley left out the acidic “Like your mother did.” that his dad always spat at the end of that sequence. It wouldn’t do any good here. 

At his pause, Sharon looked a strange mix of ill and encouraging. Her supportive nod as he grappled with verbalizing his trauma helped him over the hump.

“I was ten the first time he was gone for a month. I remember that I knew it was a month because the day he left, I was taking the monthly spelling test at school. And when the next spelling test came around, and he hadn’t come back, I thought he was gone for good.” 

That I was never going to be good enough and my dad had abandoned me the same way as my mom. No warning. No way to reach out. Just. Gone. 

Riley’s eyes stung with tears at that memory, remembering vividly how he’d stared down at the lined paper as the teacher called out the word “pivotal” and all the other kids had started scribbling down their answers as his worst fears came to fruition. That day, Riley had turned in a blank sheet of paper, failing his spelling test and not even being able to pay attention as his teacher asked him why he didn’t even try. 

He shivered, trying to physically shake the unpleasantness from behind his eyes before willing himself to finish what he started. He was being afforded the chance to explain his pain, and it wasn’t from a sympathetic but judgemental doctor, or a gruff and demanding police officer.

“The longest he was gone was three months, from November to January, when I was 14.” 

“So being alone can be hard. Being left behind is hard.” He summarized, disliking the simplicity, but unable to further disclose the trench of abandonment issues he barely kept his head above, treading on beyond exhausted legs.

Though his mother was sitting in the chair directly next to him, he felt as though she was miles away in foggy conditions. As though when she spoke, he wouldn’t be able to hear her. He just felt removed, untethered, after exposing his abandonment issues for her to pick through to find anything worth salvaging. 

A tender, melting hand on his cheek grounded him. Warmed him. Eased the throbbing ache that thrummed with the rhythm of his heart. 

“I am so, so, so sorry Riley. I didn’t…” Her words failed her, but she kept her hand on his cheek. He soaked up every ounce of the affection. When his mom began again, looking as though she’d reset, it was with a degree of vulnerability and honesty that he’d not seen from her before.

“I was having a really hard time after our talk earlier. Looking at all of those pictures, it just brought back a lot for me and I didn’t know how to deal with it.” 

Riley heard the dropped “with you.” 

“But I shouldn’t have left, especially without saying anything to you.” Her thumb stroked his cheekbone and the shiver that went down his back turned him into a puddle. It has been so long… more than ten years, two life times from the time she’d left, that anyone had offered him even a degree of comfort or affection. 

“And I should have checked on you. And made sure you were okay Ri… So, can we try again?”

Riley couldn’t help the pitiful whine that rose from his throat. The affection, the nickname, the apology (though still far from what was rightful), they all churned together to make an almost irresistible offer. Could he have what he wanted? If he just nodded his head and said yes, could he have a mom that took care of him, maybe even cared about him?

_Not love. Don’t even try to hope for that. Get what you can and don’t be a greedy little bastard like dad always said._

But still, he felt stuck. Before he could give in, the grandfather clock that loomed in the vaulted expanse of the foyer chimed once, twice, three times, then four. The hand left his cheek, which immediately turned to ice in the absence of given warmth. 

Riley accepted that his mom had made it agonizingly clear that she didn’t want to take care of him. Even without her admittance, it was an irrefutable fact made apparent through annoyed huffs, distracted and careless tending, and just downright avoidance of his presence. 

Even if they were to “start over” or “try again,” Riley couldn’t help but think that she would eventually tire of tending to his current state of high-maintenance. And how much would that gut him? His mom offering to do better, him lowering his defenses and accepting, and then going right back to where they started? 

What he uttered next was as much for his own reassurance as his mother’s.

“My bandages come off in a week.” 

Sharon looked at him, perplexed by the sharp swerve in conversation. But she took it in strike, nodding to agree. “Yes, they do.” Riley was quick to clarify.

“So, I won’t be this helpless for much longer. You won’t- you won’t have to take care of me that much after they’re off…” Words failed as the comforting hand came back to his cheek, cupping it firmer this time. Through the frantic buzzing in his head emerged a faint, “Look at me,” so he did, adjusting his glare that was previously fixed on his lap to his mom’s face, which shone with honesty and sincerity previously unknown to him.

“Even after you can use your hands again, I’ll still take care of you Ri.” 

And similar to how it happened in the shower, when she was drying his hair, his reluctance and misgivings splintered and disintegrated. His mother’s face blurred and came back to focus as his eyes filled with tears that instantly spilled, hot tracks down his cheeks, making contact with her kind hand. Her thumb wiped away the moisture, though it was a hopeless endeavor as Riley’s heart swelled with intense emotion and he couldn’t help the tears from turning into hiccupping cries.

“So will you give your mom another shot?” She asked, though Riley thought it was a moot point. He was powerless against her spell of affection. No one took care of him, made him food, wiped his tears. 

_You have to take care of yourself Riley._

That ghoulish voice that echoed sinisterly in his head sounded further away, muddled, with less conviction. Maybe he didn’t have to take care of himself all the time. Maybe he could lean on his mother and let her do exactly that, mother him. God, it sounded too good to be true. Riley blinked rapidly, clearing the tears to make sure he was rooted in reality.

When his mom’s face came back into focus, and all he saw was hope, he furiously nodded his head and her hope gave way to a relieved smile, and maybe a few tears of her own were shed.

With a contented grin, Sharon withdrew her hand, though Riley didn’t feel cold this time despite still missing its presence. 

“You look exhausted,” she remarked, the delight unshielded in her voice as she broke away to look check the time on the stove. “We should get you back to bed.” She stood up and straightened the wrinkles from her flannel pajamas set as Riley watched on, almost dumbfounded by the resolution of their conversation. 

He looked at the plate, still awash in syrup, and over at the mess of pans and ingredients on the normally pristine counter questioningly. 

His mom simply gave a kind smile and told him not to worry before repeating that he should get some rest. 

The drop from the surreal euphoria hadn’t yet hit him, but a full stomach and a lightness that was entirely unfamiliar cued him in that he actually was exhausted, even if his mind was too preoccupied to notice.

Outside of his bedroom, Riley paused, unsure whether he should test the delicate waters of “trying again” so soon, but still feeling the residual courage that lingered from their kitchen tête-à-tête. 

“Mom, can I have a sweatshirt please?” Her expression of alarm seemed out of the blue, but she motioned for him to wait a minute before disappearing into the master bedroom and quickly returning with a gray hooded sweatshirt. 

“I didn’t realize you’ve been cold Riley. You should have said something—” Sharon cut herself off in the same instant that Riley’s face faltered. But he didn’t have to admit to all the times he’d wanted to ask but was too afraid of the rejection, or the times that he did ask, but she’d been too hasty to leave him that she hadn’t heard. Or even the twisted thought that maybe she had heard him, but she didn’t care enough to help.

“I’m sorry, I said I would do better.” She stated diplomatically before orienting the sweatshirt to go over his head. “Let me help you put it on… arms out.” 

The gentle manner in which she pulled the sweatshirt over his head, pulling the collar out so it wouldn’t put undue pressure on his healing nose, and then, one by one, careful of his bandages, helped get his arms through before finally pulling the hem down to make sure he was adequately covered was striking to Riley. 

For a brief, tortuous moment, he was back in the house with his dad, freshly impaled hands gushing blood with every miserable movement, and the man wrestled a sweatshirt onto him, apathetic to how he jostled and disturbed the raw wounds he’d inflicted on his son. 

_“Fuckin’ pathetic. Wipe your fuckin’ face before you go. Nobody wants to look at such an ugly piece of shit.”_

A firm touch between his shoulder blades was enough to anchor him to the present as his mom took the time to lead him to his bed, pull back the covers and then tuck them up around him before asking if he was comfortable or if he needed anything. 

Riley felt warmer than he had in recent memory. Not just warm enough to calm the shivers and quell the goosebumps, but warm enough that he was snug and restful, and his eyes were heavy before he was ready for it. Feather-light fingers carded through his hair, and though his face was half-submerged in his pillow, he couldn’t help his upturned lips.

“Goodnight, sleep tight Ri.” A click and sudden darkness let him know that she’d turned off the lamp by his bedside.

“Night mom,” he replied through a stifled yawn, and this time, when his mom left his room, she closed the door until it was just barely cracked, not hurriedly closing it behind her in a rush to leave. 

Riley felt almost dizzy with the exhaustion, vertigo making him feel as though he was riding a rollercoaster when he closed his eyes, but his mind was as content as he could remember it ever being since before… well, before. 

And even though his mom’s apologies were feeble and muted, and they were to atone for the least grievous of her sins, he was inclined to take what he could get. He was content with it, as it was more than he’d dared hope for. And though nothing in their conversation even approached her actually loving him (he still believed it was a firm no- you can take care of someone without loving them), he put aside the uneasy feeling in his stomach in favor of being happy with less. 

Maybe his mom didn’t love him, but at this point, she didn’t hate him, and for Riley, that was more than enough to fill his cup.


	11. Better

After a quick trip back down to the kitchen to put away the refrigerated ingredients and ensure there was nothing that Murph would be tempted to counter surf, Sharon walked tentatively into the master bedroom, trying her best not to wake her husband. His alarm wasn’t set to go off for another 45 minutes, and being Monday, she hoped to allow him to start the week rested.

Through the darkness, she shuffled, knowing the path by muscle memory, but with a few too many stubbed toes to not be cautious. At the last moment, she saw the lump at the side of the bed before stepping on it. Murph barely glanced up at her, looking annoyed by the disturbance.

Gingerly, trying not to send a reverberation across the mattress (even though they had one of those memory foam ones that wasn’t supposed to do that), she laid down and pulled her blankets up, curling on her side though she felt miles away from getting back to sleep.

A tired groan beside her and a dip in the mattress let Sharon know that she was unsuccessful in not waking up Brad. But as he rolled over and put an arm around her, she melted into his embrace. 

“Wha’s goin’ on?” He slurred sleepily. “Everyone okay?” Sharon knew his eyes were still shut and that he was more than half asleep, but she appreciated the care and attention.

“Yeah, I heard something in the kitchen and found Riley down there trying to eat.” Sharon felt the body behind her tense in interest. “I made him some breakfast and we talked for a while. He agreed to give me another chance.” Saying it out loud helped her feel more like it was real, but it still felt foreign. Like the whole thing, from making him breakfast, talking over their issues, and hearing Riley recount some of the things he went through living with his father was just some vivid dream that she would wake up from with Brad’s alarm.

To get up and check Riley’s door was tempting. If it was firmly closed, then none of it was real. If it was cracked, left that way so she could easily check in on him, then maybe it had all happened and her son had agreed to let her try again. Brad’s warm hold kept her grounded though, and she stayed.

“That’s great honey.” His voice was still drawn out with sleepiness, but she could hear the sentiment behind them. “I’m glad you two decided to give each other another chance.” 

Sharon’s brow furrowed with confusion, but before she could clarify that, no, Riley was the one who had graciously agreed to give them another shot, that it wasn’t reciprocal, a low snore let her know that she’d be talking to a brick wall.

But Sharon’s mind was too busy to consider trying to sleep, though the warmth of her spouse relaxed her taut muscles. She considered Brad’s words, first dismissing them as the confusion of someone who was half-sleeping and half-listening. Then, she thought about them further.

Riley had given her a second chance, and she was deeply grateful. Had she unconsciously granted him a second chance, not even knowing that she needed to give him one?

Some of the first interactions she’d ever had with her son after their reunion crowded her mind, leaving imprints of unpleasant repercussions behind. 

How cold she was in the hospital when he was so happy to see her.

How she’d called him violent and threatened to throw him out on the drive home.

How she acted like he was overreacting when knocked his things on the floor in frustration, even though she knew she was knocking him down the totem every chance she was afforded. 

How she’d made an immense effort to see Keith’s face whenever she looked at him so that she could keep him away and in her past (though she only saw her own.)

Sharon really didn’t know when her subconscious had granted Riley the second chance he more than deserved. Maybe it was during the talk in the kitchen with Brad, or maybe it was when Riley couldn’t hold himself together for a moment longer and he sobbed his heart out to her, even though she’d been awful to him. 

Or maybe it was the moment when he looked guilty at being caught trying to eat, and her heart hurt at the thought of her son not feeling like he even had basic human rights. If he didn’t think he could eat here, was this home really any better than living with his father? Sure, he wasn’t in any sort of physical danger here, but as Sharon could tell when she realized that she hadn’t even though to clean him, neglect chipped away at him just as effectively as abuse. 

Either way, once she felt the irresistible urge to call him “Ri,” his chance was granted and she just needed him to reciprocate and give her the opportunity to make up for her wrongs. 

Just as the heaviness of sleep and exhaustion began to take her, she heard the pitter patter of little feet against the carpet. With a regretful sigh at how little sleep she was going to have to run on today, she opened her eyes to see Andy, standing not a foot away from her, wide eyed and holding his stuffed money tight to his chest.

“Mommy, wet. Accident.” 

With a heaving sign, she pushed herself up and out of bed just as Brad’s alarm started to blare his preferred morning radio show, beginning with the cold, dreary weather before diving into a heated discussion about the latest first-player shooter game. Grabbing Andy’s hand to guide him from the bedroom so she could get him cleaned up, and then the mess in his bed, Sharon briefly mused that mothering was really a 24-hour job, especially with four kids.

_____

Riley’s sleep was deep and restful. The warmth of the big sweatshirt and the blankets tucked up over his shoulders offered a cozy cocoon that kept him closing his eyes and going back to sleep whenever something would rouse him from his slumber. His sleep wasn’t drug-induced either, which helped him feel restful and not in a slow-motion caricature of the world around him.

And his stomach wasn’t aching and gnawing at him, begging him to either find some way to feed himself, or to try to fill his stomach with enough water to trick himself into thinking he was full. 

Most differently though, and the element that helped him find a peaceful rest most effectively was the release of the tense knot that started somewhere in the bottom of his gut and snaked all the way up through his organs, furling deviously around his heart and squeezing tight. 

His mom didn’t hate him. And if she didn’t hate him, then maybe, maybe, if he worked hard enough to be a good kid and didn’t screw things up, and wasn’t too needy, then she could grow to even love him. And though love was still an intimidatingly distant goal, just the fact that it was there, was enough. The minute flicker of hope was aflame in his chest again.

Riley didn’t know whether he was asleep, awake, or in a comfortable pendulum swinging back and forth between the two, but he actually didn’t feel terribly frightened or disturbed when a hand brushed his hair back from his forehead and his name was whispered.

“Riley…” He blearily cracked his eyes open, though he knew the voice to be his mom’s.

“I’m going to take Andy to preschool. Brad is already at work and Audrey and Matt just got on the bus. Do you want to go with me so you won’t be alone?”

Drowsily, he shook his head, and he heard his mom croon “Okay, I’ll be back in half an hour,” before smoothing his hair back again and leaving the bedroom. His bedroom? Riley was too sleepy to care, too warm to critically over-analyze. 

All he cared about was that his mom had heard him. She remembered that he didn’t want to be alone, how difficult he said it was for him to wake up in an empty house with no warning. Her offer to ensure his comfort fanned the flames on the fledgling little spark of hope. 

With a contented sigh, Riley sunk his face further into the plush pillow, fully enjoying its comfort for the first time before letting himself fall back asleep.

_____

The first day of “trying again” with his mother was, well, jarring for Riley to say the least. Every single interaction with her, beginning with coming downstairs for lunch when he finally felt like waking up, Riley was fraught with dread and tension. He waited for her to look straight through him, or for distracted words of dismissal. When she addressed him, he expected her words to be stinging and venomous.

So her casual, calm demeanor, talking to him like challenges of the previous week (or better yet, the previous eleven years) hadn’t happened, rattled him and threw him off guard. 

Riley supposed that he didn’t actually know what “trying again” actually entailed. It didn’t quite sit right with him that his mom felt afforded the opportunity to pretend that she hadn’t abandoned him as a kid, or that she could disregard cruelly calling him violent. 

(They were driving him home from the hospital after he’d been brutally assaulted by his father, to the point of needing emergency surgery. How was he the violent one?)

But Riley tried to follow along, to fall into step with his mom’s lead and not let corrosive resentment color his attitude. He’d agreed to give her another chance. And she’d shown good intentions earlier this morning when she didn’t let him feel left behind like unwanted baggage. 

And the grilled cheese she had offered him after affectionately calling him “sleepy head” softened his defenses as well. A second childhood favorite of his. Coincidence or not, Riley let himself relax as she fed it to him, content to enjoy something that felt like a kind gesture.

The relaxation was short-lived, however, as soon as his mother mentioned shopping for new clothing. Every negative emotion converged on him like an angry swarm of wasps. 

The cost (was he even worth it?). The complete and utter lack of belongings (You have nothing? You are nothing.). The permanence indicated by purchasing clothing for him. (She wouldn’t buy clothes for you if she was going to get rid of you, right?) 

The suffocation as he realized just how little his mom knew about him since he was five years old. 

_“Do you still like superheroes Riley?”_

Riley failed to see the point in telling her that he’d given up on idolizing superheroes at age six when his father had locked him in a dark closet for an entire weekend. No matter how many times he called for Iron Man, Captain America, or Spider-Man, he was left abandoned, forsaken, crying, hungry, begging to be let out…

So instead he’d grimly shaken his head, indicating that no, he didn’t still like superheroes.

But his mom didn’t seem shaken when his participation in online clothes shopping was limited to a glassy, unfocused gaze on the computer screen and minute nods or shakes when she pulled up different options. 

Every time she clicked submit on what Riley thought was an outrageous total, his stomach just ached more.

 _Not worth it. Not worth it. Not worth it._

As tense as he was, muscles sore from holding a taut position for so long, teeth grinding against each other from his clenched jaw, and an acutely familiar headache from the overactive worrying he was constantly engaging in to survive, he found himself agreeing to his mom’s offer to tag along to pick up his little brother from preschool.

“It will be good for you to get out of the house.”

Even through his anxieties about going anywhere in Brad’s too-large cast-off clothing and not even having a proper pair of shoes were placated away by his mother with a blasé wave of a hand and an assurance that he wouldn’t have to leave the car, Riley’s self-consciousness and insecurities still chipped away at his energy and morale.

_At least she isn’t acting like you don’t exist. Or like your mere existence is the most inconvenient burden she’d ever been landed with. Take what you can get._

His mom had taken to easy chit-chat with him on the drive, which Riley didn’t know how to respond to with his poor and limited social skills, but she didn’t put any pressure on him to participate.

The ease in which she spoke to him and looked at him with an affectionate twinkle in her eye just rang as too good to be true for him. 

Every instance of “Ri” rolling effortlessly off her tongue and the way she acted as though he was just part of the family made him ache with desire to fall into step and play along. To be the son that she was acting like he was instead of the cast-off, broken thing that was foisted upon her and her family without their consent. 

Riley felt guilty though, for doubting his mom’s kindness and intentions, especially when he flinched as she gave a comforting squeeze to his forearm before leaving the car to get Andy. He didn’t miss the flash of hurt that momentarily darkened her face, and it made him feel sick.

He needed to keep up his end of the bargain. Second chance meant second chance. Trying again meant actually trying and not letting his brokenness get in the way of his mom trying to get to know him. It didn’t matter if when he looked at her he saw her screaming “Of course I knew! How could I not? Why do you think I left, Riley?”

It didn’t matter that he still was too frozen and choked up to ask her anything without weighing how much he needed it against how much her rejection would sting. 

_Try Riley. For her. For yourself. This might be too good to be true, but you’ll never know unless you actually give her a goddamn chance to be your mother. Besides, who are you to turn down someone trying to care for you?_

Riley was still teetering precariously between protecting himself from further hurt by withdrawing indefinitely from his mother or letting her try to be a parent to him when Sharon and Andy came back to the car. 

The tipping point? 

“Andy, say hi to your big brother… Hi Riley!” 

Big brother. 

“Hi Wiley!” His little brother’s lisped, enthusiastic response, paired with a toothy smile and an exaggerated wave, convinced him to set his defenses down, like taking off layer upon layer of heavy armor meant to block the most grievous of hits, both physically and emotionally, and let himself actually try. To give his mom a chance to actually be his mom.

Riley owed it to the little boy locked in the dark closet, bargaining with any entity, religious, supernatural, what have you, that he would do anything, give anything, just to have his Mommy back. 

“Hi Andy,” Riley waved back with his own uncertain smile.

_____

“Dinner is ready!” 

Riley’s craned head snapped up at the call from downstairs. Sitting upon his bed, staring at the floor, letting himself think and feel and analyze the avalanche of change that he felt buried under. Trying to recover from the whiplash of his mother’s cool disdain for him morphing into calling him “Ri” and brushing his hair from his forehead.

Following their return home after picking up Andy, his mom had allowed him to retreat back to his room, commenting that he looked exhausted. Riley hadn’t hesitated to take the offer.

Though he’d been sleeping more than he ever had in his life, between the drugs, recovery, and depression, Riley was still drained. He couldn’t deny that he needed a break from the constant vigilance and critical over-analyzation of any word Sharon spoke or move she made, trying to determine if she was acting as friend or foe. 

The safe haven of the guest room allowed him to rest his defensive body, to untuck his shoulders from his ears and breathe without fear of being reprimanded or struck for any misstep. 

This time, he didn’t feel trapped in the room, a prisoner with no right to leave his cell. His mom had said he could come downstairs whenever he was ready, and even mentioned when Matt and Audrey would be home, though he didn’t remember specifics. Though he was free to open the door and leave as he pleased, he didn’t. Riley heard the separate arrivals of his brother and sister, the television in the living room and Brad’s multiple requests turned stern demands for homework to be completed.

Riley took everything in, staring down at the beige carpeting and his own dingy-socked feet. But he wasn’t tempted to leave his safe haven, to insert himself into the family dynamic that he still didn’t think he had a place among. 

Perhaps it was his own cowardice, or maybe he was just practicing self-preservation by holing himself up behind a closed door and simply observing through sound his mother’s family. 

His family? No, definitely not, he firmly decided. Family was an outlandish pipedream he’d given up on by age seven when the class activity was going around and talking about families and Riley had become the laughing stock of his peers because he stuttered out that he didn’t have a mom or siblings before crying hard enough to be escorted from the class until he could calm himself down.

“Riley! Dinner!” The loud call, this time firmly directed at him shook him from his relaxed position as he stood up and tried to prepare himself for whatever gutting disappointment probably awaited him during a family dinner where his mom had to acknowledge him in front of the rest of the family.

Down in the kitchen, Brad and the kids were still roaming around, grabbing drinks and napkins before finding their seats. Brad lifted Andy and put him in his high chair before taking a seat at the head of the table and reminding the two older children to put napkins in their laps.

Riley eyed his own seat that stood out awkwardly at the corner of the table, clearly a rushed addition and a poor effort to make room for an outsider. Before being acknowledged by any members of the McGrath family, he meekly moved to sit down, entirely prepared for ostracism and flat out being ignored, both hallmarks of every previous meal he’d spent with his mom and her family.

But before he could sit, his mom walked into the dining room and called out “Matt, can you scoot your chair down please and help Riley move his chair so he’s at the table?” 

Riley balked as Brad, Audrey, and Matt’s heads sharply pivoted to see him, hunched and ready to sit at his outsider’s seat. Matt looked at him like he was an alien, but obeyed his mother’s directions, moving his chair and place setting down far enough to make room for Riley’s. The kid did roll his eyes when he had to move Riley’s chair as well, making Riley feel more like a burden, but once he sat down, he felt a flash of being a proper member of the family.

Soon after, as everyone was serving dinner, passing plates, bowls, and platters, asking for seasonings and condiments, a plate arrived in front of Riley, much to his surprise. And then, striking him further, his mom pulled up a chair next to him, squeezing between himself and Matt.

As she began to cut into the chicken breast on the plate, his mother acted like she didn’t see his furrowed brow and abject confusion.

“Let me know if you’re still hungry after this plate. Brad cooked plenty of chicken.”

He was being fed first? His mom was putting off her own dinner to feed him? It was… it was unprecedented. It was confusing. 

The few other family meals he’d attended, Riley had watched everyone contentedly eat and converse, looking down at his own plate and contemplating what it would take to feed himself. Sitting on the outskirts of the family, both literally and metaphorically speaking, hungry and unable to eat, had felt like a punishment. 

And then, at the end of the meal when his mother deigned it finally time for him to eat, her expression, like she saw everything Riley’s father hated about him, and everything he hated about himself, and like she was hating those things just as much? 

Well that felt like the emotional equivalent of being kneed in the face and told to stay down. 

“Ri, are you hungry?” His mom waved a forkful of chicken in front of his face, bringing him back to the reality that felt more than counterfeit. 

Too good to be true.

_____

Riley’s wide, unsuspecting eyes and his disbelieving gape made Sharon ache, from her chest down through her stomach. 

Had her mothering really fallen so far that her son was gobsmacked that she was choosing to feed him before herself?

She hated Riley’s expression. No, she hated that it was necessary, but she didn’t begrudge him of his reaction to her pulling up a chair with a full plate of food. It wasn’t as though she’d been so generous with him at other dinners, content to ignore him back in his corner, misplaced, hungry, but quiet. 

Sharon proceeded to feed him dinner, resisting the temptation to reprimand everyone at the table for their surprise at her change in attitude. Though it had been less than 24 hours since she had been granted another chance by her oldest son, her other children were already suspiciously eyeing her for how the difference in how she was treating Riley.

Had she truly been so blatant with her coolness with him?

Your treatment of Riley goes far beyond coolness. Coolness doesn’t entail calling him a problem child or deliberately walking out on him during a meal because you couldn’t stand how much he looked like you.

With a tight-lipped, cordial smile, Sharon tried to stay attentive to her task. Tried not to let herself appear distracted or disinterested, or let Riley think for even a moment that she didn’t want to be taking care of him. She did. She truly did want to take care of him.

But if Sharon thought, even for a moment, that fixing her relationship with her son was as simple as asking him for a second chance, she was proven grievously wrong.

Riley was proving to be a tough sell when it came to being receptive to her efforts to change. Shaking his defensive shell and terrified glances didn’t just happen because she called him “Ri” and made his favorite breakfast. He still watched her like she was going to turn around and gut him without warning. He still flinched when she reached out to touch him or if she spoke at too high a volume. 

Brad’s sentiment about Riley not being the same little boy she’d known rang true, though she hadn’t wanted to believe it at the time. Sharon could more easily stomach Riley if he was the little boy who looked at her like she was Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny all wrapped into one mesmerizing package. That kid was a far cry from the skittish, miserable presence that looked constantly weighed down by shame. 

Riley would hardly look at her for more than a fraction of a moment before his brown pupils would dart back down. Sharon’s disheartening worsened as one difficult truth became apparent. One that she hadn’t wanted to even suspect, nevertheless acknowledge.

Sharon didn’t know her son at all, and in almost every interaction they’d had since that first day in the hospital, she had shoved him further and further away. This was her first attempt at getting to know who that little boy she’d walked out on turned out to be. 

The dinner plate soon emptied, and Sharon sat down the fork, wiping the crumbs off Riley’s lap and ignoring how he withdrew from her touch.

“All done kiddo?” Though she couldn’t see his expression, she saw his cheeks darken a few shades and his lips upturn into a bashful smile. 

“Yeah, um, thanks Mom.” He mumbled, more to the floor than to her, but Sharon considered a verbal reply over another godforsaken nod a success.

“Any time Ri.” They both recoiled at her poor choice of words, but she was grateful when Riley chose not to point out every single painful time when “Anytime” had so far from the truth that it was laughable. 

Chancing another attempt at affection, she combed her hand through his soft curls, with a medium chocolate shade identical to her own, and felt a surge of satisfaction when Riley almost appeared to lean into the touch. 

Maybe the process wouldn’t be quick. There were eleven painful years to make up for after all. 

But if Riley could let himself be mothered, then Sharon would take full advantage of the undeserved chance that her son had granted her.

Sharon believed that their relationship was salvageable. 

All she could do was hope that Riley felt the same.


	12. Gutted

In an unprecedented turn of events for Riley’s, things in his life started to get better. The most difficult aspects of being thrust into his mother’s life, her home, and her family were toned down, and in some cases, even extinct after Riley lowered his defenses and gave his mom the second chance she’d asked him for so earnestly.

The early, tentative days of attempting to rebuild their relationship were mostly awkward. Much the same way that Riley wasn’t comfortable with asking for help, he also struggled immensely with the concept of having a parent that outwardly appeared to care for him. 

For a solid week after their early morning heart-to-heart over French toast, all of his mother’s attempts to reach out to him were met with terrified brown eyes, stiffening muscles, and mumbled one-word answers. He was still too intensely frightened of the idea that this whole thing, his mom taking care of him, was simply too good to be true. 

And true to character, Riley’s fear froze him. 

But little gestures, day by day by day, chipped away at the ice encapsulating him in his world of fear. 

Every time she called him “Ri,” or said his name softly, he found himself wanting to trust her. The introduction of “sweetheart” expedited the process. 

Each time a meal came around and Riley didn’t have to ask his mom to feed him, when she would have a plate, piled high and ready for him, he would choke up at the novelty of someone thinking about his needs and taking care of him. 

(It took Sharon a day or two to realize that his glassy eyes weren’t from a sadness for which she couldn’t pinpoint a cause, but rather intense gratitude that Riley didn’t know how to process or vocalize.)

And every time that his mom would invite him somewhere, whether it was to drop off or pick up his younger brother, a trip to the grocery store, or to walk Murph, Riley found himself eager to tag along. Being thought of, and included, it sparked a warmth deep in his stomach that he didn’t want to acknowledge, for fear it would desert him.

Little by little, Riley started to feel like a person and less like a broken, defunct husk that was living and breathing for no good reason. 

New clothing, bought specifically for him, in his size, made a monumental difference. Starting at himself in a mirror while wearing jeans the right length that weren’t washed out, patchy, and frayed, a shirt that wasn’t thinning or torn, and socks that hadn’t seen their best days at least five years before was an experience Riley didn’t think he would ever forget. 

If he squinted, ignoring the heavy bandages, his skeleton-esque physique, and the stubborn remnants of black eyes left behind from his snapped nose, he could see a regular, normal teenager. The type of teenager that grew up with a mom that loved him and took care of him. 

Regular meals, and the opportunity to eat until he was full were also huge improvements to his quality of life. It turned out that the unrelenting gaping maw of hunger wore him down and burnt him out so constantly that he didn’t know what normal felt like. And the quest for survival, in trying to make sure he didn’t starve to death, took up more real estate mentally than he ever expected. Eating three meals a day, and supplementary snacks quieted the madness. Riley’s irritability and tension eased, and not having to worry constantly about where his next meal would come from provided him the mental capacity to think about other things, normal things. 

The cornerstone of improvement for Riley, by far, was getting the bandages removed from his hands. Regaining his independence and the ability to take care of himself was crucial, because though his mother’s willingness to help him had improved drastically from when they’d faced off in the hospital, asking someone to help him feed, clothe, and bathe himself still came about as easily as post-doctorate mathematics. 

Riley left the doctor’s office fitted with braces for each hand that allowed a more generous range of movement and a referral for physical therapy.

The freedom and relief offered from being able to grip things again, like utensils, cups, and normal things (the kind of things he took for granted before losing them) helped him to unload the burden that he feared putting on his mother in forcing her to take care of him, but the reality of living with his scars was… hard.

Sometimes, alone in his room, Riley would take off the braces and vacantly stare at his pale, skeletal hands and the grotesque, deep maroon scars that went through and through directly through the center of each appendage. Flexing them, he would find grounding in the bone deep ache turning to agonizing throbbing that made him hiss against the pain.

Vividly he would relive, over and over, the horror of not only them being shoved through, impaling him with white hot agony...

 _“When I tell you to stay down…”_ Riley only just managed to regain his faculties as the knife was driven into the back of his hand, run through, and embedded into the wooden floor. 

_“YOU STAY DOWN.”_

But also the sickening sensation of waking up to serrated knife blades being yanked roughly from him, feeling every pointed edge catching against bone, muscle, nerve, and skin.

Riley feels the nauseating sensation of the knife being pulled from his right hand, and then his left in quick succession. He retches and vomits before the second knife is dropped to the ground.

It wasn’t a healthy habit, but his fascination was morbid.

Aside from that skeleton that he harbored in secret, Riley found himself overcoming the intense impostor syndrome that reigned over him at every family meal, movie time, or activity where he was included. 

Brad had apologized to him, in an unexpected and unprecedented gesture. 

_“I’m sorry that I approached you like that. It was never my intent to hurt or scare you, but I can see why you thought differently. I just want you to know that you never have to worry about something like that happening to you in this house. I am not that kind of father.”_

The only response he’d been able to muster was a slack jaw and a disguised flinch as the man had clapped him firmly on the shoulder. 

And even Riley’s half-siblings seemed to be thawing to his presence. Audrey’s sour sneer, which matched the same sneer as girls who’d been mean to him back when he was eleven, went neutral. No longer did he overhear clipped complaints about “How long is he going to be here?” and “Why is he here now?” quickly followed by sharp shushes and reprimands from their mother when she noticed him in the vicinity.

It wasn’t much, but improvement was improvement.

Matt’s behavior pivoted from avoidance toward curiosity. The way the kid looked at him as though he was someone to look up to, to model, was unfamiliar and unsettling to Riley. What about him could anyone possibly want to emulate?

The sibling he got along with best was certainly his youngest brother. Andy was easy, non-judgmental, and had no idea just how broken his big brother was. They would color together, play store, and watch Octonauts. Playing with the toddler provided the strongest reprieve from the constant low-grade anxiety that surrounded Riley. And he would be lying if he said he didn’t melt into a puddle when the toddler called him “Wiley.”

Riley wouldn’t even admit to himself how much weight he’d placed on the mending of his relationship with his mother. It scared him, how easily he became attached to her, how much he’d come to rely on her affection and her nicknames in the short weeks after they tried to fix things. Every interaction between mother and son that wasn’t fraught with the tension and weighty history of eleven lost years served as another stitch to pull them closer together.

Day by day, they grew closer, grew to know each other. 

Riley grew to shed his unease at her insufficient apologies as it became clear to him how much he wanted his mom. How much he needed his mom.

And Sharon grew to realize how much she needed her oldest son, her first-born. Discarding the polarizing glasses that made her see Keith whenever she looked at Riley allowed her to see who her son grew up to be. 

Riley and Sharon’s relationship developed quickly through the one-on-one time when the kids were at school and Brad was at work. The pair fell into a daily routine swiftly. 

Good days and bad came at them, starting with more of the latter before slowly teetering toward more of the former the more they got to know each other. Sometimes Riley’s oppressive misery was too much and he couldn’t get out of bed without crying. And sometimes, Sharon would say the wrong thing, something insensitive to the abandonment and hardships that her son carried on his back constantly.

But, slowly, like turning a wheel rusted in place from disuse, Riley and Sharon found themselves remembering the times before. The good times when they were best friends, confidants, and getting through a difficult situation relying on each other. 

And, through an even more sluggish process, Riley’s ghoulish, sinister inner-mantra that harshly repeated “Too good to be true,” and “Not worth it,” muted until the crystal-clear, razor-edged words were a faint static in the background, like an unfriendly tinnitus that he could ignore if he tried hard enough.

Riley’s life was blossoming into something that was, dare he say, predictable? And he was thriving in it. Thriving in an environment that didn’t cycle through abuse and neglect at blistering speed. Thriving under the care of an adult (well, two if he counted Brad), rather than wondering if this was the time that his father left for good, the time that the man finally decided he wasn’t worth coming back for. 

Riley felt like an actual person, and he let himself believe, in the nights he lay awake in his bedroom (not the guest bedroom), that he could have a place here. In this home, in this family, and in his mother’s heart.

_____

“Murph, come on.” Sharon tugged the leash, urging her dog forward after he stopped at the umpteenth patch of grass to sniff. 

The morning walk was going slower than usual to her. Murph could be stopping more to sniff, visit other dogs, and relieve himself, or the below-freezing temperature and icy winds could be causing the journey to feel exponentially longer. 

Either way, Sharon was eager to get back home so she could warm up and maybe start to feel her cheeks and hands again. She was sure the figure next to her, halted and waiting patiently, probably felt the same about the wintery conditions, but he didn’t complain.

Riley was bundled in a new down winter coat, zipped up to his chin and hat down as far as it would go and still allow him to see. His hands were buried deeply into coat pockets. Whatever she could see of his face appeared pink and frost-nipped.

“Murph, let’s go buddy.” Her son said softly, which was the biggest indicator to Sharon that he was just as cold and miserable as she was out here. Riley never rushed Murph, content to let the yellow lab sniff to his heart’s content. 

Just as she was ready to pull the leash with a little more conviction, the dog moved into position to relieve himself. Sharon groaned in annoyance as Riley pulled out the roll of plastic bags from his coat pocket, tearing one off and handing it to her. 

At least they could head home after this without guilt that Murph hadn’t gotten to do his business.

Once the mess was cleaned up, Riley offered to take it back to the closest waste bucket, a block behind them. 

“Sure, hurry back. I’m freezing Ri.” Her teeth chattered. Riley broke into a jog and Sharon’s attention was quickly taken by a fellow dog walker, who she recognized under the heavy winter-wear as her closest neighborhood friend.

“Sharon, hi! I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever!” The chipper woman hurried over to her, and they briefly hugged before catching up. Her golden retriever Astro and Murph seemed just as smitten to see each other. 

“Oh, Laura, so good to see you.” Sharon tried to laugh off the panicked knot that tightened in her chest. “We’ve been so, ah, busy lately!” Whipping her head behind her momentarily, dreadful alarms blared deafeningly as she saw Riley jogging back toward them. Why had she urged him to hurry?

No one knew about her oldest son. About how he’d come to live with them. About what had happened to him. Or even about his existence. Shame wasn’t what kept her avoiding her social obligations. Nor fear of judgement for having a son who’d she’d never even thought to mention. At least that is what Sharon told herself.

“We should get together for dinner soon Shar. We need to catch up and I’m sure the kids would enjoy the chance to hang out.” Sharon pasted on her happiest, friendliest smile, nodding and agreeing emphatically, trying not to show how much she wanted out of this conversation before Riley got back. 

“Yes, great idea Laur. I’ll call you about it—” She went to pull Murph from his butt-sniffing contest with Astro.

“Oh Sharon, I almost forgot to ask. Who is that young man I’ve seen you walking around the block with?” Her heart took a free-fall into her stomach. Caught. An explanation expected. What would Laura think? Who would she tell?

Sharon’s thoughts bombarded her rapidly. The seconds were too quick. 

Jogging footfalls slowed and stopped behind her. 

Riley. 

Sharon’s eyes bounced between her friend and her son like she was watching a tennis match before landing decisively on Laura.

“Oh, that’s um, a nephew. One of Brad’s brother’s sons.” She was glad she wasn’t looking at Riley to see where he landed on the spectrum of confusion and heartbreak. “He’s staying with us for a couple of weeks while his parents are overseas. Missionary work.” 

Laura bought the story hook, line, and sinker, making a comment about how important that type of work was, and how selfless his parents must be before bidding her goodbye and walking away with her dog.

Once Laura and Astro turned the corner and were out of sight, the dread of facing the consequences of her petty lie sickened her. 

“Riley, I’m sorry…” No justifiable excuse came. 

Riley’s face was a blank, desolate slate. She couldn’t see if he was devastated by her lie or not, because he wouldn’t look at her. 

“Let’s go Murph.” Her son’s voice sounded strange, detached, and he started walking back toward the house without bothering to wait to see if she and Murph were following.

The walk back home was tense and awkward. Frigid, cutting winds howled and whiled between them as Riley walked two steps behind her instead of beside her. Even Murph seemed more subdued, skipping over some favorite sniff stops.

Sharon was at a complete loss for words. An apology would be a start, but she couldn’t find the words and she worried it would be insufficient. Explaining herself was a lost cause, because she couldn’t explain it to herself, nevertheless her son who she’d been unable to call her son.

Back at the house, as warm air stung her nose and cheeks, Riley kicked off his shoes and started toward the stairs without a word or glance at her or the dog.

“Riley,” she tried again, willing words to come when she didn't even know what she wanted to say. Sharon just wanted a hint, a small glimpse of what Riley was feeling. Then she could figure out what to say to make it better.

“‘M gonna’ go upstairs,” he mumbled dully, still refusing to let her see his brown eyes. 

Sharon wanted to grab his arm, to make him stop and demand that they talk about what happened. But she didn’t have the right, that much she knew. She wasn’t the victim here. She didn’t get to demand reparations.

Against her wishes, she let him go to his room without a fight.

“Okay sweetheart, I’ll check on you later.” If Riley heard her, he didn’t acknowledge it before the hinges on his door slowly squeaked shut.

Hopelessness knocked the air from her lungs. She’d ruined it. All the progress they had made in these past weeks. The smiles, jokes (Riley’s sense of humor, the one she’d treasured when he was little, was emerging again, he always loved to make people laugh), how relieving it was to have her son back and the ease in which he accepted her mothering.

And for what? Because she was too afraid to explain Riley and his circumstances to her friend? Because of the potential gossip of her having a secret son she’d never mentioned?

Because, deep down she’d been putting off integrating Riley into their actual life, meeting friends and extended family on account of the fact that he didn’t really fit in?

Well, reasoning didn’t really matter at this point. The damage was done. Her son was hurt. And it was her fault.

______

Depression pressed Riley deeply into the bed like a fly trapped in a glue trap. The blankets under him were warm, though his exposed skin was cold. He’d been too dazed to do anything other than discard his coat on the floor and fall onto his bed. 

_“Oh, that’s um, a nephew. One of Brad’s brother’s sons.”_

Riley was accustomed to his life falling apart. To any securities or safety nets crumbling or being cut into pieces. To having the rug pulled out from under him. 

Living under such conditions was exhausting. Constant worrying, not knowing what the next day would bring, nevertheless the next week or month, wondering if this was the time that he was abandoned for good, or maybe it would be the next time… all of it chipped away at whatever remained of his childhood and his personality until the violence, neglect, and survival were all that composed him. 

So, when his mother called him “a nephew” instead of her son, Riley was enraged at himself. 

_So stupid Riley! She doesn’t want you. She NEVER wanted you. You’re here because legally your mom didn’t have any other options, remember? If she could have, she would have signed you away without blinking, throwing you away like the worthless garbage you are, AGAIN. You knew this was too good to be true. Don’t forget that, just because you’re pathetically starved for love and if your mother says jump, you piss yourself in excitement and ask “how high?” LOSER. STUPID. FUCKING. LOSER._

He was the one who dropped his vigilance. He was the one who let himself get comfortable here, with his mom. He was the one who let himself be taken care of without having any sort of contingency plan for when (not if) this didn’t work out.

This wasn’t how he expected his life to fall apart again. 

None of this was Sharon’s fault though. Riley’s self-blame sunk its teeth into the viscera, so unbelievably angry at himself for letting his guard down. 

Rap rap, “Riley, can I come in?” Riley didn’t answer, but his mom came in anyway.

Every muscle in his body tensed. He turned over from his supine position on the bed so he was on his side, facing away from her. Pulling a pillow in close to his middle and pushing all the air from his lungs, Riley braced himself.

“I don’t wanna talk ‘bout it.” He said, mostly into the pillow, and was taken aback when Sharon responded, “I know.”

The bed behind him dipped. When his mom’s warm body snuggled up behind him, cuddled him like she’d only done once before while they watched a movie on the couch, Riley’s mouth went dry. He wanted to pull away, to let her know that he didn’t need her, but he couldn’t. Instead, he could only convince himself to not lean into the touch, to not embrace the comfort.

“Are you okay Ri?” Came her loving voice, and it hurt so much to know that none of it was real. All of it was fake. 

“Please don’t call me that.” Riley begged through his tight larynx. It felt like a wooden stake directly through the heart, but he couldn’t stand the loving nickname, not when he knew that she never meant it. She was pretending and every time she called him Ri, he would lap it up like an animal dying of thirst, while she didn’t even see him as her son. 

Sharon stiffened behind him, but he refused to feel guilty for rebuking her.

Sharon reached a hand out and began carding it through his hair, starting at his forehead and moving back before starting again. It was a loving ministration stemming from childhood, meant to calm him, to soothe his pain. 

But this wasn’t a skinned knee from running down the driveway too fast, or an upset tummy because he ate the strawberries he was allergic to. 

This was his mother being too ashamed to call him her son. And to think, Riley had believed they were close, mother and son, back together and overcoming their difficult past.

What a load of shit.

They laid still, Riley’s muscles coiled tight as she softly brushed his hair back. To Riley’s confusion, his mom didn’t speak. She didn’t pull out the generic apologies that all started with “Riley…” before trailing off. She didn’t defend herself either. Instead, she hummed.

It started out as “Hush Little Baby,” before gently shifting tune to “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” her soft hand running through his hair in a constant rhythm that almost made him drowsy. Riley resented himself for accepting the affection, but he couldn’t help it. Part of him still wanted to pretend that nothing had happened.

But then the humming stopped, and the hair stroking stopped. Any ease that settled over them evaporated.

“Sometimes I forget that if you had any other choice, that you wouldn’t have taken me,” Riley said plainly. 

Behind him, his mother’s body tensed to match his own. Riley wasn’t looking at her, but he could imagine the stricken look in her brown eyes.

“Why do you think that?” Sharon’s words were carefully measured. Her hesitancy angered him. Was she going to try and deny it? To change history and act like she had always wanted him?

“When you yelled at me, the first time, you said if I was violent again, that I would be gone,” Riley tried not to choke on the difficult words. “No matter what Child Protective Services and the police said about it.” 

He felt her sharp inhale behind him, and how she waited with bated breath.

“It wasn’t hard to figure out from there that you didn’t want to take me, but they made you.” Riley’s voice cracked as he battled against the tears. 

Sharon’s silence behind him was deafening. She wasn’t denying it. Not at all. 

In an instant, Riley lost the battle against his corrosive anguish. His breathing hitched and he hugged the pillow as tightly as he could, hands aching against the grip. 

“I thought you liked me.” Hot tears overflowed and dripped into his nose and mouth. Defensively, he pulled away from his mother’s hands, rolling farther toward the edge of the bed. She didn’t stop him. 

She didn’t defend herself. She didn’t apologize. She didn’t attempt to pacify him as his crying devolved into body-wrenching, white knuckled sobs. 

Riley felt like he’d inadvertently dug up the ugly truth. And now that he knew the truth, his mom didn’t feel like she had to fake it anymore. She was probably relieved she didn’t have to pretend to be his mom now that he’d uncovered what a farce the whole thing was. 

Every drawn-out second had Riley dissolving deeper into his upset. Each hiccup worsened his humiliation. And unlike weeks before, when he’d broken down in the shower, his mom didn’t reach out to comfort him. She didn’t tell him he could cry. She didn’t shush him and tell him that she was there for him. 

“I-I-I wanna b-be alo-alone.” He stuttered through his near hyperventilating breaths. 

“Okay Ri-. um, Riley” 

Unbeknownst to Riley, his mother brought her fingers to her lips, kissing them before dropping them to his creased forehead, barely glancing off him before she left his room, cracking the door behind her.


	13. Say It

The dinner table looked incomplete to Sharon as she glanced down at the vacant seat next to Matt’s. She still put out a place setting for Riley, though he’d been unresponsive when she knocked on his door to let him know that dinner was ready. 

It mirrored the earlier interaction (if she could even call it that), when she asked Riley if he wanted to go pick up Andy from preschool. Sharon would admit, it was somewhat of a cheap blow as Riley had quickly become a sucker for his youngest brother, but he’d been quiet when she knocked. She couldn’t tell if he was simply asleep, or just outright ignoring her attempts. 

“Mom, why does Riley get to skip dinner?” Audrey asked pointedly. “You never let me and Matt miss it.” 

Sharon sent a piercing glare at her daughter, too worn down to deal with her snotty question about fair and unfair. Brad intervened, asking her to put her napkin in her lap and eat her dinner. She gave Brad a grateful half-smile, not wanting her impatience to bleed out onto her other children.

Brad reached over and gave her hand a comforting squeeze, and she felt a bit more relaxed. Enough so that she could pick up her fork and eat, pretending like it was a normal night and her oldest son wasn’t upstairs drowning in his own misery that she’d directly caused.

After she’d left Riley to his distress, she’d called her husband at work and told him about the situation. He’d immediately offered to come home from work to help her and Riley sort things out (still ever the mediator), but she’d refused the offer. Riley needed time to calm himself down. 

And Sharon needed… well, she needed a chance to apologize and tell Riley that she was wrong and she didn’t mean what she said. 

But what he’d said had shaken her to her core. She had been struck speechless when he said that he knew about the circumstances surrounding him coming to live here. 

It would be another apology, so worn and over-tired that it would sound insincere even to herself. 

What was she asking Riley for this time? A third chance? Fourth? 

Her stomach clenched so hard that she sat down her fork. Her son must feel so pressured into giving her chances since he knew that he had nowhere else to go. Riley’s choices consisted of accepting her banal apologies or being shunted around foster care, which, as an emotionally-disturbed sixteen year-old, would sentence him to aging out of the system without any support.

_“I thought you liked me.”_

“Excuse me,” Sharon muttered, discarding the cloth napkin from her lap and fleeing the table before her family saw her cry over her meatloaf and green beans. Rushing up the stairs to her bedroom, she hastily turned on the faucet and splashed her face with cool water.

A warm, firm hand on her lower back instantly grounded her. She closed her eyes, hands braced against the bathroom counter and tried to control her breathing.

“Are you okay honey?”

“No, I’m not.” She shook her head decisively. “I need to fix this with him. He thinks all of this is fake. That I don’t want to be his mom because I made a stupid mistake and called him your nephew. And on top of that, he knows that I only took him at first because CPS said I had no choice.” 

Struck by the burning need to right things, she started toward her son’s bedroom before Brad stopped her with a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“We are going to fix this Sharon. Riley is part of the family and we will do whatever we have to to make him believe that.” His low voice was a well of safety and security. She stopped trying to leave in effort to force Riley to talk to her, to accept her apologies and explanations.

“Let’s get the kids to bed first. Give them a normal evening. And after they are asleep, we can go talk to Riley. Okay?”

Her eyes were glued on the closed bedroom door farther down the hall. Sharon was still drawn to it, the maternal urge to make her son feel better aching horribly in her chest. But she agreed, letting Brad bring her in for a hug and a comforting kiss to her forehead. 

“Okay, we’ll talk to him later.” 

_____

“Ri, can we talk to you sweetheart?” Sharon knocked lightly on the closed bedroom door before pressing her ear against it to listen for movement inside.

She was rewarded with a light rustling, which was more than she’d achieved the previous two times she had tried to reach out to her son. 

But then the rustling stopped, and the door was still closed. Just turning the knob and walking in anyway was tempting, but Sharon was wary about treading further on Riley’s privacy. She was approaching this as the apologetic party, after all, so an uninvited entrance wouldn’t be the best way to start things.

Discouraged, Sharon hesitated to knock again and Brad stepped in, knocking with more resonance.

“Riley, kiddo. We brought you dinner. Your mom said you haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.” She didn’t know if Brad’s presence would hurt or help the situation. His and Riley’s relationship was mainly co-existence. Brad was always kind, but Riley was wary. He never left himself alone with Brad or stayed near him physically if he could help it.

Sharon never missed the side-eyed caution in which Riley regarded her husband. Her heart ached every time her son flinched away from Brad.

Much to Sharon’s astonishment though, Riley opened the door. 

He looked awful, and Sharon felt as bad as he looked. Riley had reverted to his old hunched posture and his pinched face radiated distress. Huddled in his large gray sweatshirt with the hood pulled up, he looked smaller, as though he hoped to disappear in the fabric’s folds. 

Brad offered a plate of food and Riley snatched it briskly without a word. Sharon was relieved when he didn’t just turn around and close the door behind him, leaving them without a bargaining chip to get him to open the door again.

Nervously, Riley’s weight shifted between his feet. He looked like he was focused intently on the food until his head jerked up, eyes glaring directly into her own.

“I need to talk to both of you.” Nerves poured from his clipped speech.

Sharon practically jumped out of her skin at the chance to talk to her son. Would it truly be so easy? If he was open to talking to them, then she could fix this. Brad’s hand on her shoulder kept her calm and she maintained her composure, trying not to scare Riley away with her eagerness.

“Of course Riley. Do you want to go downstairs and eat?” 

He shrugged, but didn’t dissent. Taking the opportunity, she gestured for him to follow, gently saying “Come on sweetheart.” Sharon looked back at him constantly to make sure he was still following. That he was still willing to speak to them.

She could fix this. She could convince Riley to give her another chance to be the mom that he deserved. To be the mom that she had yet to live up to being since long before she brought him to live here with them. 

_____

The trio sat at the dining room table, but Riley didn’t eat. His face contorted like he was battling a fierce inner conflict and he wrung his hands together on the table relentlessly. Desperately, Sharon wanted to break the silence and launch into her ledger’s worth of apologies owed to him, one by one until he’s forgiven her, but Brad’s hand under the table clasping her own tightened, conveying his nonverbal message.

Give him time. Let him say what he needs to say.

But Sharon’s patience was eroding rapidly. Her fingers drummed a quickening pace against her thigh and just as she thought her fingers couldn’t move any faster, Riley gave a heaving exhale and fixed his brown eyes on them. They were an equal fusion between exhaustion and determination. His fidgeting hands stilled.

“I think it would be best if you guys surrendered me to state custody.” Sharon blanched, her hand turning into a vice grip around Brad’s. “I know that you guys weren’t really given a choice after my father was arrested, you know, whether you wanted to take me or not. And, I, ah… you guys deserve to have your family back how you want it.” Riley's voice was broken and raspy, and his eyes went glassy before he dropped his glare back to his untouched dinner.

“And you said you didn’t want any violence around your kids, which is totally fair. And I uh,” Riley laughed self-deprecatingly, but it came out closer to a bark. “You weren’t wrong when you said I come from a violent background.” 

Sharon winced at the shot that was obviously directed for her.

“Anyway, this, uh, obviously isn’t working out. And, um, I’ll vouch for you guys with CPS, the police, or whoever… Let them know it wasn’t you. I’ll tell them I wanted this. Make sure nothing comes back to reflect badly on your family.”

Your family. He still doesn’t believe he’s a part of it. And what reason have you given him to think he would be? You couldn’t call him your son, even when you knew he could hear you. 

Both Sharon and Brad were shaken into silence. Intertwined fingers wove tighter.

When neither Sharon or Brad had any immediate response, Riley almost appeared to lose his nerve. But he took another heaving sigh, shook his head like he was trying to rid himself of some unknown demon and launched back in with a steeled guise.

“Just let me know when you guys want me gone. And I’ll uh, call my caseworker or whoever, and let them know.” 

_____

Riley huffed with an air of finality, relieved at having gathered enough scraps of courage to say his piece in its entirety.

The green beans on the plate in front of him looked less appetizing by the second, cool and mushy as their juices ran into the dried out meatloaf and congealed mashed potatoes. But even though the mere sight of the food made him want to vomit, it was far preferable to seeing what his mom and Brad thought about the idea of giving him away.

Relief? Disbelief? Anger? Riley cycled through which reaction would be the worst-case scenario.

Time seemed halted as he waited for one of them to say something, anything in response to his offer. Even if it was just a cordial handshake and “Happy trails” before sending him on his way. Every silent second was more excruciating than the last. The tick, tick, tick from the grandfather clock had never sounded so loud.

Brad cleared his throat, startling Riley making him jerk his head up and look across the table at them. His mom just looked heavily burdened, at a loss for words. And Brad was unreadable as always. So frustratingly even in his demeanor.

Riley hated it. Hated not knowing where he stood with Brad. Even if the man hated him or yelled, Riley would know what to expect, his place in the house. But the man was practically a poker player without a bluff. Riley never knew what he was thinking and it gave Riley a constant low-grade nausea from the stress of wondering how he would react to things.

Astonishingly enough, Brad spoke up first, fracturing the thick silence that had descended on them like a layer of sheetrock.

“I think you’re overreacting here Riley.” 

_Really?_

Resentment flared hot in his gut. What right did Brad have to make a judgement like that? He didn’t know anything about what happened. Riley wanted to yell at the man to get out because he shouldn’t butt into other people’s business, but in an agonizingly casual tone, Brad kept on. “From what your mother told me, it’s a miscommunication and she’s sorry. I don’t think there’s any reason to do anything drastic.”

_Miscommunication? Did I just not understand it right when she looked me right in the eye and refused to call me her son? Not bloody likely._

Riley seethed at the condescension, molten rage bubbling and threatening to erupt at the man he couldn’t even consider calling his step-father. And his mom was still quiet, further raising his hackles. 

_Fucking say something. Acknowledge it. Say that you don’t want me so we can end this._

“Overreacting? Really? What sort of miscommunication do you think there was Brad? I heard it pretty damn clearly when she said I was your brother’s son, instead of, you know, her own son.” Riley’s defensive sarcasm warped into an overwrought rant, which he hated. But his frustration was boiling over. 

Too much anger and repression. Too many apologies that just don’t mean anything when it comes to him. Funny how people always went back on their sorrys when Riley was involved.

There were just so many times he’d been gaslit as a kid in the same exact manner that Brad was dealing with him. Told by his father and his teachers, coaches that things weren’t as bad as he probably thought they were. How his father would regurgitate the same pity-wrenching story about how “Riley just hasn’t been the same since his mom left. He acts out for attention. I’m doing my best, really, but I work a lot and as a single dad..” Blah, fucking, blah. 

“I think you need to give your mom a break. She’s been through a lot.” This time, Brad’s countenance went grave, his eyes and voice emitting a tinge of threat. The low note of danger made Riley shudder, all too familiar with facing threatening men, but he kept his composure. Fevered fury would not let him be afraid right now.

“Alright, I’ll give her a break.” Riley quelled the growl, trying to keep himself civil. “Tell me Brad, who should I pretend to be next time she doesn’t want to call me her son? Poolboy? Landscaper? Some pathetic charity case who you throw some pennies at because I’m too pitiful to turn away?” 

So keeping himself civil wasn’t exactly working out as he’d hoped. Riley was panting like he’d run a mile, face flushed and chest pounding with adrenaline. But Brad looked too stunned to speak, and Riley felt a twisted high of power rush his veins.

But while Brad sat back in his seat, putting his folded hands in his lap like he was retreating, his mother had apparently finally had enough of keeping quiet.

Sharon's eyes narrowed at him, darker than he’d ever seen them. Her cool glare embedded in him like an arrow shot with devastating accuracy. 

“Don’t be hysterical Riley.” 

Every enunciated word was biting, with the same icy disdain, the same hard, jagged “R” from when she called him a violent problem child or told him that he was just like his father. 

The howling of Riley’s inner-ghouls, the morbid manifestations of his insecurities, went loud and feral. Control was slipping from him in the manner he hated to be familiar with. Reins were tugged from his grip as his tightly compressed emotions exploded with the blast and devastation of a pressure bomb.

“Seriously? Am I not allowed to feel shitty for what you said? For your apologies being absolute bullshit? Do you not want to deal with my problems because they’re too ugly? Am I only supposed to feel all the shit that’s happened to me on the inside? Scream it out in my head because my fucking misery makes you too uncomfortable? Because every time I feel fucking anything, you say I’m being too dramatic, or hysterical.”

Sharon looked entirely unmoved. Her folded hands were on the dining room table in front of her like she was negotiating at a business meeting. Brad looked cowed, but ready to intervene.

“Riley, that’s not what I said and you know it. You haven’t let me say anything about what happened. And you’re the only one yelling here, so yes, you are being dramatic.” 

Riley wanted to scream until he was hoarse. He wanted to throw the dinner plate at the wall and so it would be shattered as he was. He wanted to stomp and throw a childish tantrum that he’d never been allowed. He was being dismissed AGAIN. No one ever took him seriously. No one ever wanted to deal with the metric tons of emotional baggage he dragged with him. No one wanted the reality of a broken, emotionally-fucked teenager. 

Riley’s self-control was ripped further from him, the reins tightening around his fist until the pressure became too much and he had to let go. 

Sharon’s eyes only hardened at him, like black granite. Not even a microscopic hint of the woman who hummed to him and called him Ri when he was upset.

There was nothing left of his control to grab anymore.

“No! Stop!” The scream ripped free from his throat. Riley gripped the hair on his head until his scalp ached. 

“We’ve done this shit before! I know exactly how this goes. You give some half-assed apology to make yourself feel better and I eat it up because I’m starved for any fucking kindness from you. And then you go on and fuck me over again because you’ve never given a shit about me!” He couldn’t help the progressively increasing volume as the words spilled out of him like an irreparable dam. The anger that he didn’t know how to deal with was breaking loose from its cage, ramming into the weakening enclosure until the hinges crumbled against the force.

“And you’ve NEVER actually apologized for walking out on me!” 

“Stop it Riley.” This time she sounded clipped and angry, her entire aura turning venomous. “You’re acting just like your father.” 

An inhuman snarl burst forth from him and he tugged harder on his hair, feeling several strands break away into his grip under the unrelenting pressure. 

All pretenses were gone. Niceties were discarded. The gloves were off. They were hitting below the belt. Riley finally had nothing left to lose now that he knew his mother didn’t want him as a son. The budding spark he’d been nurturing had been extinguished with a fire hose when his mom compared him to his father again. After he’d confessed to her how much it destroyed him.

_“So when you said that, all I thought was that when both of my parents looked at me, all they saw was something they hated.”_

“Just say you don’t want me! Say it because it’s true and you know you want to! Say you don’t want me and just get rid of me! DO IT because it is too fucking hard to keep hoping that one day you’ll love me. Just fucking say you don’t want me mom!”

Pulling his hair wasn’t enough anymore to relieve the pressure building inside him. 

Pushing himself away from the table roughly, he stood up with enough force to knock the chair over behind him. His mom was so far away. Across the table that looked like it stretched for miles. He needed her to see how much she hurt him. Riley wanted to witness once and for all the hatred in her eyes when she finally told the truth. So that he would never have even a sliver of doubt ever again about whether his mom wanted him.

Riley only made it two lengthy strides before the burly presence of Brad shot up in front of him and pushed him back aggressively, both hands on his chest. Riley flew back and hit the floor, the back of his head bouncing against the sharp corner of the baseboard. 

“Don’t touch my wife!”

His ears rang like a tornado siren and a galaxy of stars exploded in front of his eyes. Shock blocked the pain for now, but he could still feet the hot wetness of blood already dripping down his neck and between his shoulder blades. Head wounds always bled a lot in his experience.

Before he could even regain his senses, his instinct to run had him scrambling backward toward the nearest exit. Horror. Pain. Anguish. Terror. His mind cycled through all of them rapidly, but he pushed them back, because right now, he just needed to GET. AWAY. GET. SAFE.

“Riley, I’m so sorry.” Brad’s distorted voice tried to cut through the ringing, but when Riley saw him advancing, arm outstretched, his fright flared and he doubled his attempts to flee. His mind didn’t register the intense remorse on Brad’s face or the horror in which his mother looked on with her hand to her mouth.

Riley stumbled to his feet, dizziness proving a challenging obstacle, but survival spurring him onward with unbalanced, lumbering steps. GET. AWAY. GET. SAFE.

With ragged heaving breaths, he yanked open the front door and ran as fast as he could on heavy legs into the freezing night air, away from his mother’s house and the echoes of desperate apologies and pleas for him to come back.

_____

_You have to take care of yourself Riley._


	14. Survive

Riley ran until his chest was on fire. Until he was lightheaded. Until his socks were shredded and his feet were too numb to feel the pain. And then he kept running, the compulsion to get somewhere safe driving each step and pump of his arms, pushing him through the wheezing breaths and unstable legs.

When he finally stopped running, he chanced a look behind him and saw only the night sky and the glow of street lights. He was alone. Safe. No one could hurt him here. 

Panting heavily, hands on his knees, he surveyed where his legs and survival instinct had driven him. 

The old playground was only two blocks from where he lived with his father. At least four miles away from his mother’s house. Certainly not where he expected to end up. Not that he had a wealth of places to go…

As the adrenaline drained away and his heart stopped thrumming like it was beating out of his chest, reality started to set in for Riley. 

Underneath his sweatshirt and pants, he was drenched in sweat and cooling rapidly. He had no shoes and his feet were numb against the hard, frozen landscape of the park. The split skin on the back of his scalp started to throb and when he reached his hand back, his fingers came back painted with dark red, visible against the orange flow from the pavilion lights. 

What now?

_Survive. You have to take care of yourself Riley. You’ve done it before. This isn’t new. You’re just out of practice._

First thing he needed was shelter. Easy. He looked to the playground and the red plastic tunnel where he’d spent countless nights huddled up after his dad threw him out. There was nothing warm or comfortable about it, but it provided cover from the elements. 

And with the light snowfall that started to sprinkle down, cold specks hitting his damp cheeks, Riley needed to take cover sooner rather than later.

Ignoring the shivers as cooling beads of sweat dripped down his spine, Riley crawled in the tube and curled up on his side, trying his best to cover his hands and feet, which were the quickest to freeze from previous experience.

Okay, what next?

Riley went down the laundry list of things he needed: shoes, food, warmth, water (because the park district shut off the water fountains during the winter months), first aid if his head wound didn’t stop bleeding soon… none of it could be taken care of right now, not in the middle of the night while snow and wind were picking up in equal intensity.

Shelter in place. Try not to freeze. That was all he could do right now.

Which, unfortunately, left a lot of room in his head to replay arguing with his mom, yelling at her, and being shoved by Brad. 

As the wintry mix pounded against the plastic tube, Riley kept reliving the scene: the cold plate of food, nearly gagging on his request to be sent away and the relief that followed when he said it, Brad’s condescension, “You’re acting just like your father,” “You don’t want me!” Brad's heavy hands on his chest and landing in a heap on the floor after his head knocked against the sharp wooden corner.

Riley swallowed back the ugly truth that was now painfully apparent as the shivering set in: he could never go back there. He had no place with his mom and her family, which he should have known before, but apparently needed to be knocked on his ass for the message to sink in. 

Was there just something about him that made men lay their hands on him? Because he’d watched Brad with his actual children. How gentle and loving he was with his daughter and sons. If anyone asked him if he ever thought Brad would hurt Audrey, Matt, or Andy, Riley wasn’t sure if he’d scoff angrily or laugh hysterically at the far-off notion. Brad McGrath would never hurt his kids.

Riley was the exception. He drove Brad to violence. Kind, soft-handed, neutralizing-presenced Brad had seen the need to dominate Riley with physical force. 

_So, I guess your father’s actions toward you were the rule, not the exception._

So now he had no home, no place to go other than this tube that was more coffin-sized than anything. And this wasn’t like he was waiting for his dad to cool down so he could be let back into the house. Or waiting until the sun came up and it was time to go to school. 

Riley had nowhere to go. No plan. No belongings. No shoes even. Nothing except the clothes on his back and a concussion gifted by his mother’s husband. 

His body was cooling down rapidly now, the sweat on his body long-cold against the frigid air. His teeth chattered and he couldn’t help the convulsions. At least the plastic tube blocked the wind. So he had that.

_You have to take care of yourself Riley. That’s more true than ever now._

____

“Ma’am, do you have a recent picture of your son?”

Sharon ached at the police officer’s question as she scribbled down various details on her notepad. She knew for a fact that she didn’t. In the six weeks since Riley had come to live with them, she hadn’t snapped a single picture of her oldest son. Not after their “second chance” talk, and certainly not before. 

She had barely even been able to give the authorities an accurate physical description. At her blank stare and struggles to grasp accurate descriptors of Riley, Brad had stepped in for her.

“16 years old, brown hair, around 5’8’’, maybe 140 lbs soaking wet? Skinny as a rail. Skittish.”

“Um, no I don't.” She wrapped her arms around her middle, insecure and inadequate in her role as a mother. She would never be without a current picture of her three younger children. 

“What can you tell me about the circumstances of his leaving?” 

“We had an argument. I think he got scared, so he ran.” The statement, while not an outright lie, was far from forthcoming. It was corrosive as it settled under her skin. 

The officer looked up from his notepad. She couldn’t tell if she was questioning her vague explanation or not. She squeezed her middle tighter against the discomfort rolling around in her stomach.

“Can you tell me why he would have been scared enough to leave?” It didn’t sound like an accusation, at least not directly. But what could she say to defend what happened? If she told the truth, Brad would be arrested. And he didn’t deserve to go through all of that just for defending her. For an accident. 

“He, uh, he has a history of being abused.” The officer’s brows arched in alarm, and Sharon hurriedly appended, “By his father. His father is in jail, awaiting trial for the abuse charges.”

“Okay,” she furiously wrote, flipping the page as her eyes scanned her notes. “Did you or your husband try to follow him?”

Sharon brought her hand up to her mouth, the worry and guilt becoming too far-reaching. She looked over at her husband, who was answering his own series of questions, like what time Riley fled and whether he’d tried to get in contact with them. Brad’s face was just as grave and full of remorse. She couldn’t imagine what he was feeling.

She couldn’t imagine what Riley was feeling. Betrayed. Hurt. Alone. 

“Mommy…” A tug on her sweater took her attention from the interrogation. Andy, fuzzy blanket in one hand and gripping a stuffed rainbow alpaca with the other, stared up at her with scared, glassy eyes. Hot guilt swarmed her for the rush of maternal love she felt, and she bent down to pick up her son, hugging him close and resting her cheek on his silky blonde hair.

“Hi baby, what are you doing out of bed?” The police officer gave her an understanding glance and said she'd finish up later before flipping her notepad shut and striding back to her partner, who had just finished up with Brad’s line of questioning.

“Scared. Lotsa people. Loud.” He mumbled into her chest. Sharon rubbed his back soothingly, swaying her hips to calm him. Savoring the relief of having her child close, she closed her eyes against the incoming tears, but only saw Riley. The yelp when Brad pushed him. The sound of his body landing and his head against the wood. His bone-chilling terror as he stared up from them from his place on the floor. 

They’d called the police as soon as the initial shock had worn off them, their front door wide open as the wind howled into their foyer. Even Brad, who was as unshakeable as they came, stuttered and trembled while on the phone with the 911 operator, trying to explain what happened. He’d called Riley his son, as broken and tight as his voice sounded.

“My son. My son ran away. He’s gone.”

And while initially the police were reluctant to send officers, giving a stale, bureaucratic declaration about how it hadn’t been 24 hours, and he was sixteen years old, so there wasn’t much they could do. But Brad's insistence convinced them to send a squad car.

“It’s well below freezing and starting to sleet out there! That’s our kid!”

“I know baby. It’s going to be okay.” She kissed his forehead, trying to convince herself far more than her toddler that things would in fact be okay. 

Sharon drifted over to her husband, holding Andy tight and looking up at the landing to see Audrey and Matt crouched down, overlooking the scene through the oak railing slats. She tried to shoot them a comforting smile as well, but she couldn’t manage it. 

Andy’s outstretched arms were met by Brad, who transferred him over to his own hold. “Let’s get you a snack and get you back to sleep bud,” he muttered to their youngest, able to mask his overwrought emotions with a mask where Sharon could not. 

Her eyes trailed after them up the stairs desperately. She wanted Riley back. She wanted to brush his hair back and watch him try to hold back a grin when she called him “Ri.” She wanted to go grocery shopping with him and not be able to say no when he put Pop tarts in the cart. Hell, Sharon would even take one of the painfully awkward times when they had tried to talk about his childhood and growing up.

Anything to have her boy back. 

How such a petty little white lie had snowballed into such a catastrophe, with Riley hurting worse and worse at every turn, Sharon had a difficult time understanding. 

More than anything, Sharon wishes that she’d just looked at him with every ounce of the love and pride he deserved, and said “That’s Riley, my oldest son.”

“Mrs. McGrath,” the officer approached her again, sympathy abundant in her words. “Do you have any ideas about where your son would go?”

And once again, Sharon couldn’t produce an answer. The anguish of not knowing her son was acute. Where were his favorite places to go? Who were his friends? What were his preferred hobbies, activities, and restaurants?

“No officer. I don’t know. I don’t know if he even has anywhere to go.”

_____

“Okay, the coast is clear. C’mon Riley. You got this.”

Riley peered over the rotting wood fence across the street from his old house before ducking back down hastily. 

The house looked vacant and deserted. Some faded yellow scraps of police tape were still tied to the leaning iron railing on the front porch, but it didn’t look like anyone had been in the house for weeks if the thick layer of damp fallen leaves covering the lawn was any indication. 

The mission was simple, Riley tried to reassure himself through his jittery countenance. Get in, get shoes, get out. Simple. 

After the night spent in a shivery fog in the tube, Riley had reassessed his survival needs and found the most dire situation to be hit feet by far. The four-mile barefoot run across frozen grass and pavement had rubbed the bottoms raw, socks turned to ruined scraps. Combined with the constant exposure, they were an agonizing mixture of numb and painful. 

Hunger and thirst could wait. Warmth could wait. His concussion could wait. His feet could not wait.

So he’d concocted a plan to break into his old house, find a pair of shoes, and leave without being detected. 

Riley didn’t think the danger level was too high. No one lived at the house and the investigation into the house as a crime scene was long completed. But still, he was technically a runaway at this point, and if someone saw him breaking into the house, the police would be called in an instant. And then… then what?

Well, Riley wasn’t really sure. The police could send him back to live with his mother and he could live in constant fear of being Brad’s whipping boy? No. Riley was tired of the fear. His endurance for living in constant terror had run out. He didn’t want to go back to that. And besides, living in his mother’s house with her family, watching her love her children and taking care of them while he cowered in the corner like a kicked, unwanted stray would be too crushing.

Or maybe they would send him to foster care, which is where he’d asked them to send him anyway? Turning himself in was a tempting notion at first before he remembered that his mother and Brad hadn’t agreed to give him up. Even if he tried to surrender himself to state custody, he’d be turned back over to them before he could blink.

Nope. Couldn’t happen. 

Survival was what was important. Taking care of himself was essential. Right now, long term wasn’t even important or on his mind. Right now, all he needed were shoes. And maybe, if things were going well, he could snag some clothes and other items to aid in survival. 

Riley focused back on his plan. He was better on the doors being locked. The gray lock boxes on the front and back doors meant that even if he found one of the keys he’d hidden in the barely-deserving-of-the-term-landscaping, they would be useless because of law enforcement intervention.

No big deal though. Riley had been thrown out of that house and forced to find a way in more times than he was comfortable remembering. He knew exactly which window had the broken lock. His father had never noticed it was broken since the window was out of alignment and often stuck when trying to open it, but Riley knew the trick.

After all, it had saved him when he came home from school for Christmas break when he was 12 and found himself locked out, no sign of his father. He’d wanted to panic and be upset, but the sub-zero temperatures demanded that he figure out how to get in quickly.

Checking over the fence one more time and seeing nothing amiss, Riley decided to make his move. 

In. Shoes. Out. Simple.

_____

Okay, maybe not so simple.

The pounding of his already agonizing feet against the cold wet pavement was torture. How could the bottoms of his feet be numb but he could still feel every single rock, crevice, and acorn under them? Still, he pushed through, shoes in hand and whipping his head around every few seconds to see if he’d thrown the officer off his trail.

At least he had shoes in hand, though he couldn’t stop long enough to put them on and relieve the worst of his misery lest the police catch up with him.

Riley’s mission had started out according to plan. No one seemed to notice the barefoot kid approaching the crime scene house and going around back. He’d successfully opened the window using the trick to push in on the left and up on the right side of the pane and made it into the house.

The first slip up was Riley not expecting how much it would affect him to be back in his old house, where he’d endured the loneliest days and nights of his life and the most horrific, nauseating abuse at the hands of his father.

Even breathing the stale air was stifling. Misery hung heavy in every room he tiptoed into, getting pulled back into terrible memories that occurred within every wall. Riley thought he was holding it together until he saw the dusty bright yellow strip of crime scene tape spanning the entrance to their front room. 

And the rusty brown stains staring back like blinding spotlights.

And the twin serrated steak knives discarded with little numbered placards next to each. 

Riley stared, mouth agape, for God knew how long until he heard the low rumble of an engine pulling up into the driveway and the brief screech of brakes.

His heart lodged itself in his throat and panic seized him.

He was going to get caught. They were going to send him back. Back to Brad and the fear. Back to his mom and her shame of him. 

Riley didn’t take the time to investigate who the intruder was (he certainly wasn’t an intruder), ran to the back door to grab the first pair of shoes he could find. He despised the fact that it was his father’s steel-toed work boots, and if he had more time, he would have searched for any alternative. But that wasn’t the case. Beggars can’t be choosers.

Riley swiped them by the laces and sprinted back to the room with the busted window, hopes of taking food, clothes, or blankets instantly discarded. The room with the window was in view of the driveway, so he was definitely in danger of being spotted, but there weren’t any other options for expedient escape. The adrenaline prevented him from noticing the stinging pain of nerves coming back to life in his feet as he ran across the house.

Hastily, he threw the boots out the window as he heard the fumbling with the front door lock box and slipped out of the window sill one leg at a time, hitting the ground with a grunt.

Bending down to grab his prize, he was alarmed when a shout echoed through against the dingy aluminum siding behind him.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

Riley saw a uniformed police officer looking right at him and he took off in the opposite direction amid shouted orders to stop. His knowledge of the immediate area played to his advantage, knowing which fences had loose boards and were climbable, and which yards were impassable due to aggressive dogs that would give chase. 

The boots were heavy in his grip and his chest was on fire once again, but every time he whipped his head around, he’d gained more ground on the police officer. 

Turning the corner, he remembered the broken garage door at the Kroll house and thought that could be his ticket to finally lose the tail. Panting wildly, Riley spotted the ancient, chipped-paint garage door and said a prayer that Mr. Kroll hadn’t thought to repair it the past six months.

When the heavy door lifted under his grip, he thanked whatever God had answered him and heaved it high enough to duck under before letting it slam shut behind him, cloaking him in darkness.

So no, not a simple mission.


	15. Out of Options

“He was spotted at his old house? Are you sure it was him? And he ran off? Okay, thank you for calling. No, no, we appreciate any information we can get. We will be sure to stay in contact if we hear anything from him. Okay, thanks again, bye now.”

Sharon hung up the phone as the wild rollercoaster of information from the detective coursed through her. She was still processing the surge of hope from hearing Riley was spotted before she was gutted by hearing that he’d run from the police and they’d lost sight of him.

“Was that the police? What did they say?” Brad rushed into the kitchen where Sharon sat, face sunk in her hands. She looked up in response to his panic.

“They said someone matching Riley’s description was spotted climbing into his old house through a window and when the police arrived, he ran off.”

“Did they say if he looked okay?” Sharon shook her head indicating the negative. They didn’t say anything about whether her son was okay or if he was hurt. The call only made her feel worse, because even though she had an idea where he was, the knowledge of how afraid he was crushed her. 

“I want to go out and look for him. We have an idea where he is now.” Brad vented, obviously flustered as he grabbed his phone and car keys from the counter next to the garage. 

“Brad, stop.” He stomped toward the front closet and came back swiftly with his winter coat, throwing it over his shoulders, oblivious to her objections. 

“Stop!” She shouted again, voice bouncing off the cabinets dramatically. It sent the message, because Brad finally stopped running around long enough to pay attention.

“Sharon, I’m just going to go look around the area. The police saw him there and maybe he’s just afraid of the cops. He’s a skittish kid.” The urgency in his voice offered her a degree of warmth and comfort. She wasn’t the only parent worried about Riley. But still, he wasn’t considering the fatal flaw in his plan.

“Brad, he’s going to be scared of you too.” His face instantly darkened and the determination dropped from his posture like he was suddenly carrying an impossibly heavy burden.

Sharon hated to bring him down from his frenzy to find Riley and bring him home, but it was impossible to not address the elephant in the room. Hurting him was the last thing she wanted, but Brad clearly wasn’t thinking through his plan.

Her husband sat down on a kitchen chair with a heavy thud, looking thoroughly deflated.

“I didn’t even think about him being afraid of me,” Brad admitted, his distant gaze growing heavy. “I just want to tell him I’m sorry and to bring him home. I didn’t even consider that he probably hates me.”

Sharon’s heart ached for him, having felt and said nearly identical things to Brad weeks before concerning Riley. She’d been so sure her son hated her, so conflicted about bringing him back into her life, and Brad had been her anchor, grounding her in reality and making sure she didn’t run away with her fears and worst-case scenarios.

“I don’t think he hates you hon,” she tried to comfort with a hand on his own tense fist. “We both know he’s had, well, a difficult time. And the other night you surprised him and I think he’s just frightened.”

Brad nodded, face still drawn down in guilt at how he’d pushed Riley. Nearly thrown his shoulder into the kid. The kid who was too-thin, gangly, and at least six inches shorter than him. He wanted to be sick.

Sharon, brimming with reason and logic through the high-running emotions, raised her eyebrows at him, how she did when she was trying to make sure he truly listened to what she was saying.

“We will get him home. We will get Riley back. But right now, we need to let the police work and give Riley a chance to calm down. You’ll get your chance to make things right, I promise.”

Brad nodded solemnly.

_____

Riley held his breath against the horrendous smell as he scavenged hurriedly through the garbage bin like a rabid raccoon. Coffee grounds, used napkins, burger wrappers, food rotten beyond belief, and various liquids squished between his fingers and he fought off the retching as his stomach rebelled. 

Just one edible thing. One. And then he could eat it and try to forget about the shame of digging through the trash for food by focusing on whatever he needed next to survive homelessness in late November. 

The fast food place near the gas station was the only eating establishment that was close enough for Riley to walk to without exhausting himself or arousing too much suspicion as a runaway teenager. Affording to purchase something was such a far-off notion that it was laughable, but Riley had to eat, so in the darkness of the early morning hours (which were unfortunately some of the coldest), he tried to find something half-eaten, or maybe thrown away because it was slightly past its expiration date.

Anything to fight back the lightheadedness and delirium of starvation. 

He’d been caught once. The shame of being shouted down by the manager and hit over and over with a dirty mop had been enough to keep him holed up in his playground for two full days before he felt awful enough to try again.

Riley could take someone yelling obscenities and insults at him if he could just get something to ease the gaping maw in his stomach that constantly chipped away at his sanity.

With his top half bent over the garbage bin, frantically searching, Riley didn’t immediately see as the back door to the restaurant was flung open, the angry Latino man already lobbing angry insults. 

“I told you not to come back here, street rat!” 

Gasping in fright as the sudden disturbance, Riley gagged as he took in a lungful of putrid rotting garbage. He didn’t have time to react before the guy grabbed the edge of the garbage can he was bent over and began to rock it back and forth, nearly knocking him all the way in.

Breathless from the shock, fear, and stench, Riley emerged from the filthy receptacle just in time to be hit with a hefty industrial broom this time. It knocked him backward, off-balance as the purple-faced man shouted vitriol.

“If I see your sorry ass again I’ll beat you senseless and call the cops!” He swung the broom down again, hitting Riley across the shoulder. Not eager to take any more blows, Riley tried to retreat, backtracking away in the dark parking lot while not taking his eyes off the threatening presence wielding a heavy weapon.

Stumbling backwards, trying to avoid another swing from the broom, Riley didn’t see the vast pothole in the decrepit parking lot until he tripped over the edge and splashed into the filthy, wintry puddle. 

Riley yelped as he was partially submerged in freezing slush, the entire back and most of the right side of his clothing instantly drenched and heavy with brownish water. 

He hardly had time to throw his arm up in self-defense as the restaurant manager swung down on him again, the hard plastic handle colliding painfully with his forearm. Riley begged for the man to stop, accepting the humiliating defeat.

Still in a rage, the man stomped off muttering everything from “good riddance” to some slurs that Riley didn’t want to repeat before yanking open the back door to the restaurant and slamming it shut with a heavy clang.

Threat abated, Riley hastily pulled himself out of the deep puddle and used fumes of adrenaline to leave the property before police were called

Panic swirled dizzyingly through Riley’s head as he repeatedly checked behind him, looking for police or maybe the restaurant manager wanting to take another whack at him like he was a piñata. 

With nothing but dark road behind him, and flickering street lights in front of him on the hopelessly disrepaired sidewalk, Riley allowed himself to bring his thoughts back to his own dire straits. 

First and worst, he was soaked. His only clothing was mostly wet and frost was rapidly stiffening the fabric against his frigid skin. He didn’t have any way to dry his clothes, and in these conditions, it would take days before they dried on their own. 

Days of being intolerably cold. The boots were wet too, dirty slush flowing in the mouth of each shoe when he landed in the pothole and squishing around his already numb toes. 

This was bad. Really, really bad. 

The weather was only getting colder by the day, with a singly sunny afternoon bringing the temperature slightly above freezing according to the neon sign at the bank, being the only somewhat tolerable condition he’d experienced. 

Riley had withstood being cold before. Freezing even. He knew which appendages to keep close because they were more at risk of frost-bite, and the best ways to shield himself from cutting winds. Riley didn’t know if he could withstand this. 

And on top of the danger of freezing to death, he still hadn’t gotten to eat. Shameful tactics at procuring food only earned him a beating and a dip in a puddle. 

While the limited dredges of adrenaline from the violent confrontation had blocked out the worst of the hunger pains temporarily, they were returning with a vengeance now. Slowly trudging, feet feeling encased in cement, he didn’t know how he could feel so weak while his shivering was so strong. How could he want to fall over from weakness while his muscles shook so fiercely? It didn’t make any sense and he didn’t understand how he was still standing.

Turning at the next corner block, Riley hardly felt the relief at being back at his playground shelter. It wasn’t home. Riley didn’t have a home. It wouldn’t be warm. The red plastic enclosure would only block the worst of the howling winds. 

But it was a safe place to curl up and try to survive the night. And that was the best he could do for now.

Rocked by his convulsions, Riley could hardly crawl up the play area. Constant tremors kept him from any single steady movement and the still-healing stab wounds in his hands ached viciously as he tried to brace himself against the metal railings to haul himself up the steps to the level where he could rest.

Groaning with every trembling breath, Riley dragged himself into the length of the play tunnel before losing all of his strength and collapsing, his face thwacking hard against the frigid surface, unable to control his bodily movements. He cried out as the frozen clothing was pressed up against his side, making him even colder if possible.

Riley tried to take stock of his situation, the way he usually did when trying to survive, but felt a dark pit deepen in his gut when it became apparent that he’d run out of options. He was too cold to move. Too weak to find food. Too exhausted to even keep himself awake to try and survive. Riley could only pray that he’d survive, but really, he wasn’t even sure if he wanted that. 

If he never woke up, he wouldn’t have to deal with being cold and hungry anymore. He would never have to remember his mom’s eyes narrowing at him, chilling him far more effectively than the puddle he’d fallen into. Or Brad’s lightning-fast, quick-striking anger as he turned on Riley. 

Maybe he shouldn't fight at all against the dreadful sensation of his body shutting down. Maybe it would be for the best if he never opened his eyes again and had to feel this awful about everything in his godforsaken life.

As Riley’s eyes grew impossibly heavy, his raspy breathing slowing, his limbs filled with lead, he could only muster a single desperate thought: I don’t know what to do. Somebody help me. Help me. Help me. Please.

Even though he knew there was no one in his life to answer.

____

Sharon’s daily patrols around the area Riley had last been spotted, near the home where he’d grown up with his father, the house that she’d lived with them for the first five years of her son’s life, were feeling more bleak and hopeless by the day. 

Every morning and afternoon after she dropped Andy off at preschool and before she picked him back up, she would drive to the poverty-stricken area and look for her son. 

She’d slow down in front of each alleyway, check with the local homeless shelter, look under bridges and in every nook and cranny she could find before driving home with defeat heavy as stone in her stomach and the dreadful feeling of Riley being gone for good taking up expanding real estate in her heart.

This afternoon, Sharon almost hadn’t gone. Facing her son’s absence, not knowing if he was even alive- it was just too much. Every day’s failure felt sharper and more acute and after a fruitless morning search, Sharon had found a nearby parking lot to park where she could break down and cry for nearly 30 minutes before wiping her tears and driving back home to her empty, quiet home.

In the short weeks that Riley had been with them, she'd quickly grown accustomed to his presence, even as quiet and unassuming as he tried to appear. She missed his muted footfalls across the kitchen when he was trying to be silent while getting food from the fridge, and the jingling of Murph’s collar soon followed by “Are you cold? Good boy,” as he jumped up on the couch to join Riley who always welcomed the company.

Every deafening silence was gutting. Each walk past her son’s closed bedroom door. Did he know that it wasn’t the guest room anymore? Did Riley realize that it had become a room belonging to him? She supposed she never expressly told him how permanent she intended his presence to be.

Sharon didn’t know if she could take the sharp stabbing blades of failure and guilt again this afternoon. 

She wouldn’t have even gone out, having Brad pick up Andy, but Murph needed his yearly shots, and the vet’s office wasn’t far from her designated search area.

The itch to try again wouldn’t be ignored. 

Murph wasn’t fond of the constant slow cruising as she scoured the places she thought Riley most likely to be hidden. She was annoyed by the dog's incessant whines and pawing at the back window, the stress exacerbating her irritability past the norm.

But again, agonizingly, Sharon found nothing. Empty alleyways, the usual tight-lipped headshakes from the shelter workers (whose pitying looks made her wince), and no signs of her oldest son anywhere. 

Heaving out a sigh that felt like it had the weight of the world, Sharon fought back her tears against the fresh wave of hopelessness. Riley could be anywhere by now. He was last sighted nearly ten days ago. Her son could easily be out of the city, out of the state even. Not even wanting to be found.

Riley probably didn’t want to see her or Brad ever again after what they did to him. And she couldn’t blame him. 

From the back seat, Murph’s high-pitched, drawn-out whine let her know that he had to go to the bathroom. Oh well, Sharon thought, she could use the break to wallow before driving back home. Turning into the gravel lot at the nearby park, Sharon tried to calm her dog down, his whining loud and shrill by the time she parked the car.

“Alright Murph, we’re here. Don’t have a cow.” She unbuckled her seat and grabbed his leash before opening the car door. Murph didn’t wait for her to open the backdoor for him, instead opting to jump over her lap like a dog trained in agility.

“Murph, calm down! Stop pulling!” Her shoulder strained against the dog’s mass pulling her, nearly sounding like he was choking against his collar’s pressure on his neck until they got to the frosty grass.

Sharon hoped he would be quick with his business, given how the wind was picking up, whipping her coat and scarf around wildly.

“Hurry up Murph,” she urged, drawing her coat closer around her middle. She stopped paying attention to him, the dog’s nose buried in the ground as he sniffed and sniffed.

Sharon didn’t expect him to pull away from her so suddenly and with such force. She yelped as the leash was yanked out of her grip, the yellow lab racing away from her at top-speed. He must have seen a deer, rabbit, or other woodland creature, she thought, just passed the point of pissed off.

With a colorful string of curses, she started to give chase, not even bothering to call out because she knew the dog wouldn’t care to hear her if he was hunting wildlife. 

But Murph didn’t run blindly into the wooded area as she expected. Instead, he slowed down at the playground. 

Sharon was still too far away to clearly see what Murph was after as he stuck his nose back to the ground, this time on the wood-chipped landscape around the children’s play structure. 

Finally, winded and irate, Sharon caught up to the dog on the playground, but as she reached for the leash, still cursing, Murph urgently whined and ran away, this time taking the stairs that wound up to the play area. Incensed didn’t even start to describe her as she gave chase, stomping out her rage at a simple stop being so aggravating.

The dog’s straw-colored tail could be seen wagging fanatically outside of the red tunnel, his front half already inside, licking whatever his prize was with great enthusiasm. Her lip curled, hoping it wasn’t a raccoon carcass or any other dead animal viscera. 

“Murph, let’s go!” 

Sharon caught up, grasping his leash triumphantly and vigorously pulling him back. “I’m cold, I want to go… Oh my god!”

Inside the tube, the object of Murph’s intense persistence, wasn’t some animal or bag of abandoned fast-food leftovers…

It was a person. A person who was groaning as he struggled to right himself, smacking his head on the plastic before crashing back down, unable to support himself.

“M-murph, s-s-stop it…” 

A fist gripped her heart and squeezed like a vice-grip.

She knew the raspy stutter. 

The matted, dirty brown hair.

The clothing under layers of filth and detritus.

Her baby.

“Riley!”


	16. Found

His unconsciousness wasn’t sleep, more of an inability to stay awake through the suffering. He certainly wasn’t dreaming, his muddled mind attempting to absorb the physical pain that his body was too battered to comprehend. Even if he was lucid, Riley didn’t believe he could move under his own power. 

“Murph, stop it,” Coughs racked his body painfully. Why was it so hard to talk? Murph’s heavy panting and foul breath were hot on his face. He tried to lift his hand to swat the dog away as Murph’s tongue lapped repeatedly at his face, but his arms were too heavy to respond. Riley couldn’t bridge the disconnect that separated his mind from his body. 

“No Murph,” his words slurred. With how he felt, was he drunk? His head pounded like a jackhammer and his stomach turned like an Olympic diver. 

Why won’t Murph leave him alone? Who even let him in his room? He always shut his door at night...

With a sudden lurch, Riley cried out as his stomach heaved and tried to expel its contents. But nothing came. Each horrible retch ripped through him, and Murph’s breathing dissolved into whines.

Murph pawed at his shoulder urgently, and Riley didn’t even have the energy to push him away. He could only moan against the severe nausea and uncontrollable heaves that only produced sickly bile to coat his dry throat.

Dizzy and disoriented, Riley had no idea where he was. He couldn’t even open his eyes, but the tears seeped out anyway, only to be quickly lapped up by the eager dog.

Distantly, he thought that, just maybe, he heard his mom’s voice, but it sounded like she was on a completely different plane of existence. Was she coming to take Murph from his room? Maybe she would notice that he didn’t feel good. Riley wanted his mom. Deeply. Desperately. Down into his bones. He wanted his Mom.

Between Murph’s concerned whines and wet licks, Riley still couldn’t tell which way was up, why he felt so awful, or why his mom sounded so far away. Adding to the confusion was a faint sensation of anguish when he thought of his mom. He didn’t understand it and he couldn’t access why it was intrusively embedded in his soul like a splinter. Reaching out to try and understand felt like swimming deeper and deeper after a treasure that kept sinking, his arm at full length, fingers straining as far as they could reach, chest aching as his lungs depleted of oxygen…

“Riley!”

His suffocated gasp coincided with his eyes blowing wide open. At first, all he saw was red and was hopelessly confused. Where was his bed? Was this his room? Why was he so cold?

And then, blended with the hysterical screams and sobs from his mother, Murph’s barks, and the sick agony he felt in every molecule of his body, the memories rushed back with all the detritus of a tsunami wave.

 _Mom doesn’t want you. Brad pushed you. You don’t have a home. You have NOTHING. You’re always cold. Always hungry and thirsty. Eating the snow only made you feel sicker. You looked through the GARBAGE for food. Hmm, ironic, because you are garbage like Dad always said._

Riley barely registered the pressure under his arms and the sensation of being pulled out of the tube. His blown pupils winced harshly against the afternoon light, even with the dreary, overcast sky. 

And suddenly, he was being propped up, warm arms encircling him and pressing him against her own warmth. Riley was almost sick again from the vertigo, but he swallowed it back down when his mom’s hand brought his head down against her chest. She rocked him. Back and forth. Back and forth. Her chest hitching from the obvious upset.

“My baby…” She cried, rocking him and holding him closely, like when he was young and didn’t know how scarce her hugs would be. “My baby…”

Riley let himself be rocked. Sure, he lacked the physical strength to fight against it, but he couldn’t deny how loved he felt in the moment. And even with the acute knowledge of what happened before… One of Brad’s brother’s sons… Stop it Riley, you’re acting just like your father… Of course I knew! Why do you think I left?... Riley wanted to pretend like none of it had happened. That he was still five years old and his mom loved him, and his life wasn’t going to fall apart spectacularly. 

“Love you Mom…” Riley didn’t even know if she could hear his dry whisper through her own tears and the clicking of Murph’s mails against the playground set, but she squeezed him tighter and dropped a kiss on top of his undoubtedly filthy hair.

“I love you baby…Ri, I love you so much. Never leave me again.” 

Riley wanted to say the same, but the sudden crescendo of sirens, doors opening and closing, and first responders asking dizzying questions, he could only put it in his back pocket for later.

_I love you so much Mom. Never leave me again. Please._

_____

Riley spent nearly four days in the hospital recovering. His runaway and stint of homelessness had landed him with a laundry list of health issues varying in severity from frostbite on some of his toes, to a bacterial infection from neglecting the gaping gash above the nape of his neck. 

An IV took care of the worst of his dehydration, and they fed him with a tube through his nose for the first two days because he was too weak and exhausted to stay awake long enough to eat. 

Riley stayed huddled under a pile of blankets that seemed to grow every time he woke up, and nurses would place hot water bottles against his skin if he started to shiver. He didn’t even have to ask. 

Mostly, he slept through the hospital stay, unaware whether he was alone or not, of any comings and goings, and how long it had been since he’d been found half-dead in a playground tube by Murph.

Once or twice, when he managed to emerge from his delirious fog long enough to take stock of his surroundings, he noticed a hand resting slack on top of his own, cognisant of the IV jutting out of the back. With enormous effort, he turned his head and focused his dazed eyes, following the hand up until he saw its owner.

His mom was slouched over the side of his bed, asleep, appearance disheveled, and dark circles under her closed eyes. 

Riley chose to believe that the swell of warmth spreading through him, from his heart outward, came from the thick pile of blankets and the hot water bottles nestled against him. 

It was safer that way.

Riley’s eyes fluttered back shut and sleep reclaimed him. 

_____

On the final day of Riley’s hospitalization, he was finally more awake than asleep, though awake did not necessarily equate lucid. He was aware of the low volume of the TV perched in the corner of his room, cycling between news, sitcoms with laugh tracks, and occasionally silent. 

Nurses and the occasional doctor checked on his condition, taking his blood pressure with a cuff, his temperature, and checking over the various ailments. Riley quickly learned the routine. Pressing on his frostbitten toes, turning his head to the side to examine the stitches on the back of his head, changing the hot water bottles, and then he would be left alone. He had no idea how much time elapsed between each nurse checking in on him. Staying awake still remained a steady, often futile struggle. 

It was only after he was disconnected from his IV, and the feeding tube was removed from his nose that the scales started tipping toward lucidity for Riley. When he woke up, blinking against the bright slices of sunlight streaming through the blinds, he actually didn’t want to go right back to sleep. 

Upon searching his room and seeing that he was alone, Riley swallowed back his disappointment and tried to pretend it wasn’t corrosive.

It’s okay Riley. You don’t need her here. She has three other kids that come before you. You can’t expect someone to sit around your hospital bed while you sleep your life away. Don’t be selfish.

He wanted to go back to sleep, maybe put off his lonely reality just a little bit longer, but quick footsteps descending upon his room, caught him with his eyes open before he could even pretend he was asleep.

“Oh Ri, you’re awake!”

Sharon was quick to put her coffee cup on the nearest surface, urgency and worry palpable. 

Riley tried not to flinch back when she put her hand to his forehead, pushing back his hair (Had it been washed? He had no idea. It must be so disgusting.), but according to his mom’s crestfallen expression and quick withdrawal from him as though she’d been burned, he didn’t do a good job.

To Riley’s relief, though, she didn’t acknowledge his hurtful, cowardly reaction, instead painting over her shaken feelings with a gentle smile. 

“How are you feeling sweetheart?”

All he could muster was a headshake. Now that he was awake and remembering everything that happened, both before and after he ran away, he was just… confused. Lost. Uncertain. 

Was his mom just here to tell him that she was sending him to foster care? That seemed unnecessary. A social worker in place of his parent would have spelled out the message. 

Or was she going to pretend like that night didn’t happen. That Riley didn’t aggressively scream at her until Brad shoved him into a wall. Was Riley supposed to pretend it didn’t happen too? Maybe this would just be another toxic cycle of abuse, guilt, and apologies that he had no choice but to accept. 

Riley should just tell her that she and Brad could skip over the apologies. Keith had skipped over that part when he was six. Riley supposed his Mom shouldn’t have to worry about the guilt part either.

“I’m sure you’re still exhausted.” She replied as though he’d said something. “Well the doctor wants to get you out of here and back home, so he said he’d come back in around nine for one last check up and then discharge you.” 

What home? He thought, bitterly. The house that very clearly belonged to his mom and her family? Her words, no his. 

The home where Riley could live under constant, sickening terror that next time he made Brad angry that it would be more than a push. A kick, a punch, or Brad might even have a taste for the belt too. Riley couldn’t pretend that it wouldn’t escalate. It always escalated. 

Running away was a direct reaction to the threat of living in fear, and now he was supposed to go back to that threat without even acknowledging it? 

Riley wanted to be sick again. 

He opened his mouth, trying to will a protest, but none would come. Coming to his own defense wasn’t exactly his strong suit. 

“Riley…” His Mom’s voice was nervous, hesitant. Here it comes. She was going to say that Brad didn’t mean it and that he should be forgiven, and it wouldn’t happen again, and...

“Brad is staying with his sister across town for the time being, so when you come home, you don’t have to be afraid.”

That… wasn’t what Riley was expecting. The farthest thing from it, in fact. 

This time, when he tried to say something, it wasn’t that the words he wanted to say refused to surface. Riley just didn’t have the words. They were worried about him being afraid? Him?

Sharon must have noticed his apprehension and loss for words. She sat down on the edge of his bed and enveloped his hand between both of her own, hiding the reddish brown monstrosity of a scar. Her thumb started a comforting back and forth motion, helping to calm him.

“Brad, he… He is of course very sorry and regrets what he did to you.” Okay, now here it comes. Riley braced himself from his hands, to his stomach, to his frostbitten toes.

“But he knows that being sorry doesn’t fix making you afraid of your own home.” His own home? What?

“So he has agreed to stay away so that you can recover in peace. And he hopes that you will give him a chance to make things right, but that you don’t owe him that chance. Brad doesn’t want to rush you. When you forgive, if you want to forgive, it will be on your own time Ri.”

Riley fixed his glassy, swimming eyes on his Mom, brows knit tighter than a mariner’s knot. It sounded too good to be true. Right before he ran away, no one gave a fuck about how he felt, whether he was afraid or hurt. If his Mother had cared, she would have just called him her son in the first place. And now Brad was leaving his own home for Riley’s comfort?

“It’s his home. He shouldn’t leave because of me. I’m just…” An intruder? Guest? Interloper? Horrible inconvenience that should have stayed hidden?

“It is your home too Riley.” She sounded so sincere. Her eyes conveyed a weight that left no room for argument.

“B-but, what if I? If-f I’m never r-r-re-ready?” Typically, Riley didn’t try to push through his stuttering when it was that bad, but he needed this answer. 

With a kindness and tenderness that threw him back to his early childhood, his Mom cupped the side of his face, her thumb wiping rogue tears that had fallen down his cheek. She leaned in and kissed his forehead, like she did when he was sick and she was checking for a fever.

“Then we can talk about that when the time comes. But I need you to tell me that you understand something Riley.” He was entranced by how genuine she looked, and how every word was heavy, but in a good way, as though they came from the bottom of her heart and were anchored there.

Riley didn’t think he could turn away if there was an explosion right outside his window.

“You will never have to feel unsafe, or afraid in your own home. Never again. Do you hear me kiddo?” 

His tears fell faster now, completely unchecked, running over the hand that stayed steady on his face, holding him, lovingly. As he nodded his understanding, her hand moved too, unyielding in the best way possible, letting him know that she was there for him.

She pressed another warm kiss to his forehead, and his heart wrenched with effort to savor the moment. 

“Okay then Ri, the nurses will let your doctor know you’re up, and then we will get you home.” And then, with one last stroke of his damp cheek, she whispered, “I love you Ri.”

But Riley didn’t believe her. Not yet. Not now. She may think she loves him, but Riley knew far better than to let himself believe that someone could love him. Nevertheless the woman who looked at him and saw his father. The woman who looked at him when he was five years old and decided to discard him as though he was an old newspaper. The woman who admitted to his face that she didn’t want to take care of him. And the woman who, when asked, was too ashamed to call him her son.

Riley wanted to believe her, and to believe that things had changed. But he’d been burnt. Badly. Too many times. He didn’t even know if he was capable of love, or if his heart had just, somehow rotted in the eleven years he’d spent alone, afraid, and unloved. 

Still though, I love you Ri, it sounded nice.


	17. Love

“More Nauts Wiley! More!” 

Riley rooted through the numerous blankets for the remote, checking the floor and behind his back so he could press the “Next Episode” button on Netflix’s credits page. Why on Earth did Netflix make the credits page so long on kid’s shows? He grumbled as his little brother began to bounce on his lap in his impatience.

“It’s coming Andy.” He scrambled harder until the hard plastic remote met his hand, closer to his knees than he was expecting. With lightning speed, Riley hit the “Next Episode” button, and when his brother relaxed and settled back into his spot between Riley’s legs sipping from his cup, sighed with relief as though he’d diffused a bomb.

The Octonauts’ theme song played for what felt like the hundredth time that day, and Riley was pretty sure he could sing along if it was a “gun to his head” situation, but he didn’t want to admit it to anyone.

Recovery back at home was better than he expected, much to Riley’s surprise. 

When his mom had brought him back home, she’d gotten him situated on the couch, explaining that she could keep a better eye on him if he needed something, and that the doctor wanted him to keep walking to a minimum to allow his feet to heal. And he hadn’t protested, though his cheeks had burned hot with the unfamiliarity of being cared for so thoroughly. 

He’d been set up with a heating blanket, heating pad, and more soft blankets, quilts, and pillows than one person could possibly use. 

And well, most of the time, it hadn’t just been one person on the couch, again to his astonishment. 

Apparently his youngest brother had missed him a lot when he’d run away. And now that Andy had him back, he wasn’t eager to let his big brother out of his sight. Sure, it meant a lot of Octonauts, some Daniel Tiger, and a smattering of Peppa Pig in the mornings before preschool and the evenings after, but Riley loved it. A lot. And when it was time to go, or when Andy got back home, the toddler would throw his arms tightly around his neck and say “Wuv you Wiley!” 

Thankfully the first few times no one had noticed or questioned him when he’d gotten choked up by the affection.

Next to him, Murph’s lazy presence rolled on its side, pressing further into him. The yellow lab had been another near-constant presence during his recovery on the couch. 

Riley wasn’t sure if the dog actually liked being around him, or whether he was just taking advantage of the heated blanket, but the company was nice. 

Even Matt and Audrey had joined him for a bit in the evenings, inviting him to play video games with them after they finished their homework and cleaning up after dinner. Things with his other two siblings were still awkward, but they no longer looked like they wondered why he was even here. 

And they liked kicking his butt at whatever game they chose that night. Riley didn’t mind. Audrey had even given him a high-five when his character had managed to NOT get beheaded in the first level.

Brad’s absence from the home was felt by all the members, with a healthy injection of guilt surging through him when Andy would ask where his Daddy was at bed time, or when, thinking he couldn’t hear her, Audrey would ask when her Dad was coming back, because she missed him. 

“Whenever Riley is ready. He’s still getting better. We just need to give him time.”

There was no filling the sinkhole in his stomach that opened up when he thought of depriving his siblings of their father, of taking away his Mom’s partner and helper when she had three, no four kids to take care of, of his presence forbidding Brad from living in the home that he paid for with the family he loved.

Riley tried to ignore it. He attempted to distract himself from the guilt, but it wasn’t as though he could sink into the plot of Octonauts and forget about life for an hour. 

And really, truly, he wanted to forgive Brad and let the man come back home. Riley wanted things to be better for everyone. But whenever he opened his mouth to tell his Mother that he was okay, and that Brad could come back, he’d close his eyes and remember the aggressive hands, flying back through the air, and the sickening crack as his head bounced against the baseboard. 

Riley would just choke on his fear and be stuck in a paralyzed trance until his mom checked on him, Andy came home from preschool, or Murph would relentlessly paw at his blankets so he could crawl under and curl up for warmth.  
Through the Octonauts celebrating a victory, or something or other, Riley heard his Mom’s slippered feet on the tile floor behind him in the kitchen. The clink of a mug followed by the fresh coffee aroma echoed, and Riley knew that the Saturday morning alone with his little brother had ended. 

“Good morning boys,” she stood behind the couch, looking down at them. Riley gave a wave and a quick, shy good morning of his own. Andy wouldn’t be interrupted from his Octonauts marathon (and Riley really wasn’t sure he’d seen the kid blink in the last 20 minutes…)

“Andy, do you want to go color in the playroom honey?” The toddler answered with a quick and decisive no without removing his eyes from the television. 

“Andy, why don’t you go wake Audrey up. I give you permission to jump on her bed until she gets out of bed.” That offer was the ticket apparently, as Andy’s face split into a wide toothy grin and he hopped off Riley’s lap and ran toward the stairs with a blazing pitter patter.

Riley was then left alone with his mom, who walked around to the front of the couch and sat down on the other side of Murph, who grumbled at the disturbance before falling back asleep. 

His Mom fixed her eyes on him with the sort of gravity and expectation that made Riley’s stomach turn to ice, even though she masked it with her loving smile. He paused Octonauts before turning off the television completely, setting the remote on the coffee table for easy finding later when Andy wanted to watch more TV with him.

“You know Riley, you don’t have to always watch what Andy wants. And you can let me know when he is being too much. You need to rest.” Some of the ice thawed, but Riley still couldn’t let himself relax. 

He hated his brokenness and how he couldn’t have a single conversation without expecting the worst.

Still, he managed to flash a fond smile at her, the warmth of his youngest brother’s adoration a powerful balm against his inner-anguish and demons. 

“No, he’s great.” Riley shyly replied, looking toward the upper landing as Andy’s maniacal laughter was quickly pursued by Audrey’s enraged shriek.

Sharon looked the same way, waving Riley off when he asked if she needed to go take care of the squabble. 

“Well you’ve been a big help with him, so thank you.” Riley blushed, unused to any sort of praise. “And I know how much he loves his big brother Wiley.” Bashful, Riley’s face flushed a deeper scarlet, and he couldn’t help but laugh, 

The jovial mood between them settled and Riley hated the tension he sensed building between them. His mom wouldn’t be here, sitting with him unless she wanted to talk about something, and in Riley’s experience, that was never a winning equation for him. 

With a nervous throat clear, Sharon held out a blank-faced envelope. When Riley didn’t immediately grab it, too unsure, Sharon offered up an explanation.

“It’s a letter, from Brad. He wasn’t sure if you would want to speak with him and he didn’t want to put any pressure on you while you recover.” Riley swallowed, drinking in the consideration though he wasn’t sure where to file it away in terms of unfamiliar experiences. He tentatively grabbed the envelope, eyes poring over his name scrawled in black ink across the front. 

A fresh swell of guilt glutted in his stomach, removing any trace of hunger he’d felt while watching TV with his brother. 

“I’m sorry that he’s not here to help you. Because of me.” His mom reached out to him, but was too far apart to make contact. Riley was too withdrawn and uncomfortable to remedy the situation. He curled into himself on the couch, drawing his knees to his chest.

“You have nothing to be sorry for Riley.” He disagreed vehemently with that, but didn’t bother showing it outwardly. “Brad and I are just glad that you’re safe.” Again, Riley didn’t know what to do with the concern that was just so casually handed to him. 

Before the latest incident, when he’d caught his Mom red-handed in expressing her shame of him and it ended up escalating in violence, Riley ate up the care, kind words, and affection like a naive puppy. He’d been desperate for the love-adjacent gestures and that desperation had torn down his defenses with impressive efficiency. 

But when the farcical illusion was torn down around him, the anger at himself for the vulnerable desperation had gone a long way in building his walls higher than before. 

Now, any kindness from his Mom, whether a comforting shoulder-squeeze or a kiss pressed to the top of his head, he scrutinized it under a microscope with a surplus of skepticism. 

What had happened before… it effectively annihilated him and he didn’t trust that it wouldn’t happen again as he attempted to rebuild.

At least Sharon was kind enough to not acknowledge his withdrawal or force the physical contact. But still, she stayed seated on the couch, letting Riley know that she came to talk about more than just the letter from Brad. Icy fear swept through him just like in “Frozen,” which he’d watched with Andy three separate times now.

“Riley,” his stomach clenched hard enough to draw him further into the fetal position. “I really want you to know how much we want you to stay here with us.” 

Skewed expectations lifted his stare from the quilt’s intricate stitch pattern to his Mom’s expectant carriage. 

“What do you-? I uh, I don’t understand.” 

“The night you… left…” Memories too painful, Riley had to look away again. “You said you wanted to leave, and for us to call CPS so you could go into foster care.” He wanted to plug his ears and scream, turn the TV back on to full volume, anything to not hear her.

“And I want you to know Riley, that I don’t want you to leave.”

Her words sounded so nice, so sincere. But he’d made this mistake before, after eating French toast and having a heart-to-heart with his Mom that tricked him into thinking he could have a relationship with her. Riley wouldn’t be such a desperate chump this time around.

“You couldn’t even call me your son.” Sharon flinched back at his dead, almost arctic tone, but she was undeterred. 

“I’m so sorry for what happened Ri-” The injustice tried to expel itself, almost uncontrollably. He’d never been one to interrupt people, but holding it back wasn’t an option anymore.

“You say that a lot. And it isn’t that I don’t believe you, but, b-but…” he sputtered, but determinedly pushed on. “But I’ve done this before. You know, being treated really shitty, and then the apologies come, and then it just happens again and again, until the apologies, they just- stop.” Flustered, Riley pressed his forehead into his closed fist, the pressure grounding him just enough to get his point out. “And then I’m just left getting treated like shit.” 

“Riley, baby, I’ve made so many mistakes when it comes to you.” His head snapped up in uneasiness, worried he was about to hear the brutal, gutting truth. “But the most important thing is that you were never one of them. I always wanted you. I always loved you. And I’m still struggling with now to make things better between us, and the apologies are just the only way I know how to start.”

Riley didn’t let himself believe his Mom, despite the continued gravity and sincerity she conveyed. He wanted to spit out that fact, shoot down her attempts purely to protect himself, but the profession of love gave him pause.

“The biggest mistake I ever made was leaving you Ri. And, second to that was never explaining why.

_____

The battle between wanting to hear her out and closing himself off for good played like a movie across her son’s face. Sharon’s heart ached at how closed off he looked, burying himself into the back corner of the couch, as far away as he could possibly be without burying himself in the cushions. And he was curled up tightly, arms coiled around his knees like snakes suffocating prey.

Sharon wasn’t sure Riley would allow her to explain her side, and she also wasn’t sure she deserved the chance. In their past relationship, when push came to shove, Riley always got the ugly end of her actions and reactions. 

Frankly, her son owed her nothing after how she’d repeatedly discarded him and his feelings.

But Sharon owed him a proper explanation. Not one for the surface-level transgressions, like once again telling him that he was acting like his father or being unable to acknowledge him. Riley deserved apologies for those, but things between them could never fully heal unless they addressed the deepest, most heinous wrong committed against him. 

Sharon needed to dig through layers and layers of hurt, years upon years of wrongs, to make things right between her and her son. Because that crime still hung heavily in the air, as much as they tried to look past it. It remained a gargantuan elephant in every conversation she had with Riley. 

To fix the present, Sharon first needed to fix their past. She just hoped that Riley would agree to let her try.

“I-I… I asked you before- back when…” Riley’s voice, undulating with insecurity, died in his throat. Sharon wanted to lean over and hug him, give any sort of comfort, but she could tell from his defensive stance that it wouldn’t be welcome. She stayed patient as he tried to find himself again.

“Back when w-we talked about th-this. I asked why you left- why you didn’t take me with you. When you knew he was like that.”

She remembered the catastrophe of an interaction well. Broken plates, cut and bleeding feet, and screaming. So much screaming. From both sides. And it had ended abruptly when Riley asked her that same question.

“Then why didn’t you take me with you?” 

“Will you give me the chance to explain it to you Riley? I’ll explain everything, and then you can decide what you want to do. If you want to stay or not.” Please want to stay. “Does that sound fair?”

Sharon could practically taste the skepticism that rebounded off Riley, his eyes watching her so cautiously that she felt she could be wielding a knife. But he nodded, granting her the final chance she needed. 

“Okay, here goes…” She inhaled deeply, righting her posture and composing herself. “When your father and I were together, after I had you, he was a very good father to you. He was always involved, active in taking care of you, playing with you. To me, he was a scary, violent man, and when he proposed, I didn’t feel like I had the option to refuse. Because he was a good father to my son, and giving you a good life was all that mattered to me.”

Sharon felt herself getting lost in the past, spiraling back to the place that she’d spent monumental efforts to bury like a time capsule never meant to be opened. Riley’s attention was rapt as well, though he looked slightly stricken and nauseated. 

“The affair with Brad started after you turned four. It went on for a while behind your father’s back. And when I found out I was pregnant with your sister, Brad wanted us to take you, leave, and start a new life as far as we could get from your father.

“Then your father found out about the affair, and that I was making arrangements to leave him and take you with me…” The memory nearly broke her. Keith’s monstrous face, how he threw her computer on the floor and irreparably broke it, fearing for not only her life, but the tiny, budding life her and Brad had created together. She couldn’t let him find out about that.

“I thought he was going to kill me.” 

Sharon tried to level with Riley at that confession, all-too-aware that he had similar experiences with Keith, but his morbidly twisted expression let her know that her shot didn’t land.

“So yeah, leave your five-year-old son with someone you thought was capable of killing you,” he scoffed, the anger and injustice blatant. Part of Sharon withered, and the prospect of fixing things with her son looked bleak. But he deserved the full explanation, and she just had to take the hits. It wasn’t like she didn’t deserve them.

“Please Riley,” she pleaded. “I know you have been through so much sweetheart. I’m not telling you this to justify your pain or your childhood. I’m not trying to absolve myself. I just can’t give you the apology you deserve without explaining everything that happened.”

Riley withdrew his claws, shrinking back into a smaller ball.

“I’m sorry.” It was so small she barely heard it, but it still formed a fissure in her heart.

“You don’t have to be sorry Ri. You’re frustrated and hurt. Understandably.” She paused, waiting to see if he would lash out again. When he stayed still and silent, haunted eyes following the stitches on the patchwork quilt, she proceeded cautiously. 

“Is it okay if I keep going?” His nod was hardly discernible.

“After that, your father gave me an ultimatum. He would let me leave and be with Brad, and we would be safe, but I couldn’t take you with me.

“I refused at first. There was no way I could leave my baby behind. You were my everything.” The tears pricked at her eyes before she was ready for them. 

“But then there was a terrible fight between your father and Brad when we said we were taking you. We were both so scared, and we knew that if we took you, your father would never leave us alone. We would never be safe. Your father didn’t care about police, restraining orders, any of that. All he wanted was control. And we needed to be free of that to start our new life together. And since I was pregnant—”

“You chose Audrey over me.” 

Sharon recoiled at the acidity. His chocolate eyes went the color of coal and they could have burned a hole through every blanket layered over him.

“No, it was never like that Ri. Your father, he was so good to you. And we couldn’t let him find out about my pregnancy. He swore to me that if I left you with him, that he would never touch you. He promised that you would be safe with him.”

Riley’s immediate derisive snort in response to her raw, heartfelt words left her highly uneasy. His sable eyes were locked on her.

“The first time he hit me was the same day you left. He was annoyed because I wouldn’t stop asking where you were, and why no one picked me up from school.” Every nerve end felt alight at his bitter, self-deprecating laugh that held no trace of humor.

“It knocked out my first loose tooth. So I got to learn that my Mom left, my Dad was mean, and that the tooth fairy didn’t exist, all in the same day.”

Shame consumed her as though she’d fallen directly into a bonfire. Keith had promised. And his promise had lasted less than a day. Less than 12 hours before he laid hands on Riley. Her little boy who was left at school. Her son who just wanted to know where his Mommy was and when she was coming home. 

Her heart ached gruesomely enough that she wanted to physically grab it to ease some of the pain.

“When I left, I thought I was leaving you with one good parent. I thought it would be better for you to be safe with him rather than be potentially always in danger with me and Brad. I though-” She shook her head and loose tears fell to her lap. 

“I thought that maybe since you were so young that you would eventually forget about me, and you would grow up happy with your dad.”

Every utterance sounded absolutely preposterous now that she heard them out loud. Had desperation and fear truly driven her to believe that? 

Abuse plays terrible tricks on the mind, and Sharon was no exception. Every frightening moment with Keith swirled together in a sickening, dangerous concoction of fearing for her life, Brad’s life, and the life of her unborn baby. She thought that Riley would be the only one safe from Keith.

It took Riley a minute to reply, and when he did, his throat sounded constricted. 

“Well that didn’t happen.” Sharon could tell he wanted to say more, but was fighting a valiant battle to physically hold himself together, judging by his bone-white knuckles on his knees.

“I’m just so sorry Riley. It was the worst mistake I’ve ever made, by far. And you were the one who had to suffer for it.”

Sharon was afraid as his face twisted somewhere between anger, disgust, heartbreak, and confusion before falling firmly into heartbreak as tears shone.

“You couldn’t have called one single time? Or sent me a birthday card? Just one thing to tell me that my mom cared that I was alive. That you didn’t just forget about me.”

Another white hot flash of shame was supplemented by an explosion of guilt. Sharon tried to defend herself, but even the thought of trying to prove Riley wrong in this felt revolting.

“We were just so scared Riley. Brad and I, we didn’t want your father to find out where we were, or to give him any reason to come after us. I was so sad to leave you behind. I felt so empty…”

But Riley wasn’t in any mood to accept her excuses or to let her off the hook. While he didn’t look dangerous, he looked every bit as angry as he had right to be. 

“You say you were so sad to leave me, but when it came to taking me back, you treated me like garbage. You hated me!” The rise in his voice was startling and she chanced a look back toward the landing to see if anyone noticed before turning back to her aggrieved son.

“I never hated you Ri.” She tried to keep her voice calm and even, hoping to de-escalate him. 

“You wouldn’t feed me! You said I was violent, and a problem child! You said it yourself that you didn’t want to take care of me.” Riley was working himself into an indignant fit, and worst of all, Sharon had no rebuttals. Every word of his rant was true.

But when he started again, the rage was rapidly dissolving into despair.

“It felt like you were punishing me for being here. And I never asked them to give me to you.” 

Unable to take the distance anymore, Sharon adjusted herself to move closer to him on the couch. Riley didn’t retreat further, but his muscles remained coiled and taut, she assumed for a quick escape.

“I don’t think I could ever apologize enough for how I treated you when we first brought you home Riley.”

Riley shook his head rapidly, his own tears falling freely now. Sharon felt awful that so many of their interactions ended like this for her son. She hated seeing her baby cry.

“I don’t want apologies. I want to know why my mom hates me.” His sorrowful dejection struck a determined chord in her. She would make Riley understand how much she loved him if it was the last thing she ever did. She had to make him understand.

“Riley, I said I never hated you.”

“No, you were just too ashamed of me to actually call me your son!” His voice broke in a woeful crescendo. “What, did I not fit into your family enough? Were you planning on keeping me hidden like some dirty little secret until I was old enough to move out and you could go back to pretending I don’t exist?”

His anguished hysteria was wearing thin and it was easy to see through the frenzied shouting and biting words to the hurt boy that was just trying to protect himself the only way he knew how.

“Sweetheart…” Grabbing both of his forearms, she gently pulled, hoping to coerce him from his protective cocoon. He acquiesced, unwrapping his hands from his knees, but he didn’t move any closer. Sharon pulled him closer until they were flush against each other.

“I was so excited when I saw you in the hospital the first time. My mom came back. You wanted me. Maybe I mattered to you. Finally. And then you looked at me the same way dad always did…” His utter despair made her wrap an arm around his shoulders, needing him close.

“And you told me about your family. Your kids. And I realized that it wasn’t that you left because you didn’t want to be a mom. You left because you didn’t want to be my mom.” 

The bottom dropped out of Sharon’s stomach. How unloved, how unwanted that her baby had felt when she had left him behind and started a new life. Riley’s keening whines from that day in the hospital echoed hauntingly.

“I hated that I made you cry that day.” But that only made him angrier.

“Then why did you threaten me on the way home?!” He whipped around to face her, blown eyes demanding explanations that Sharon just couldn’t give. 

“I wanted my mom. I wanted to matter. To not be worthless for once in my goddamn life. I wanted to mean something to you. B-b-but you didn’t give a-a shit about m-me…” Riley’s efforts to hold himself together failed. He hid his face behind his hands and sobbed into them. 

The urge to comfort her baby consumed her. It was clunky and awkward and uncomfortable, but she pulled and maneuvered Riley until he was sitting in her lap, crying himself out. She cradled him and rocked him, trying anything to soothe her son’s misery.

“I’m sorry for all of it Riley.” She pressed her cheek into his hair, squeezing him tighter against his body-wracking cries. “If I could go back and undo all of it, I would. If I could take on all of your heartache and every bit of pain your father and I caused you, I would. You’re my baby boy Ri. I love you so much.”

It felt odd, trying to comfort a sixteen year-old boy in the same way that she comforted Andy when he had a bad fall or a tantrum. Riley wasn’t a child. Not the child she left. He was bigger, taller, sadder. His long legs splayed over onto the couch and his arms remained defensively folded over his front. As she held him, she felt like she was the only physical thing holding him together. 

“You’ve already given me more chances than I deserve, but I promise you Ri, I just need one more. Just give me one final shot to be the mom you deserved to have all of these years.” 

He didn’t answer. She didn’t believe Riley could have said anything through the suffocating sobs. So she just kept rocking him. Back and forth. Whispering “I love you. I want you. I love you. I want you,” Over and over. She would repeat it as many times as Riley needed to hear it. She just hoped that he was listening and that he believed her.

Ten minutes elapsed before Riley started to calm, the hitches in his back slowing, his breathing settling. Finally, Riley rubbed his arm across his face, wiping the tears and snot in an ineffective attempt to compose himself.

Sharon quieted her mantra, but she didn’t move him from her lap, despite the heaviness pushing down on her lap, causing her legs to tingle. And Riley didn’t remove himself either.

They sat. Silently. Rocking barely discernible. 

Sharon was taken aback when Riley was the first to speak. He’d lashed out so much and been so hurt their entire conversation. He would strike and she would be left trying to defend herself. 

Suddenly, the dynamic shifted.

With a sniff, voice distorted by congestion, he asked nervously, “Did you really think I was going to hurt you?”

Sharon was at a loss. What did he mean? He’d never hurt her. He’d never tried. Why was he worried about hurting her?

“What do you mean baby?” She said into his soft curls. Riley tensed in her arms, but he still let himself be held.

“When Brad did- what he did, he was defending you. Which means he thought I was going to hurt you. So you probably thought the same thing.” 

Her tattered heart shredded further under the confession. Her son felt this way because of her. It was her fault, because she was so quick to anger with him. She was the one who withdrew any kindness and affection at will, leaving her son reeling and trying not to drown in the stormy waters. Sharon was the one who struck out with the killing blow of comparing her abused son to his abusive father whenever he demonstrated any sort of anger. 

“Everyone was so upset that night Riley. Emotions were high and you were asking some very difficult questions.” Riley’s breathing hitched again, so she doubled down on rubbing her hand up and down the length of his back, and between his tensed shoulder blades.

“Brad has always been very protective of me, especially with my past, with your father And when I said you were acting like your father, I think he got afraid for me. I never thought you were going to hurt me Riley. You’re so sweet, my boy.”

Abruptly, Riley stopped letting himself be moved along with her rocking, going stiff in her arms. Her hand paused, resting on his spine.

“I promise I won’t ask for a lot. But please, please never compare me to him ever again. I can’t take it.” Riley’s voice sounded so tight and constricted and her heart ached for him. 

“I promise Riley.” He relaxed again. “You’re not him. Not even close.”

They lapsed into another silence as he seemed to accept her declaration. Well, he didn’t fight it, and that would have to be enough for now.

Sharon blamed the growing discomfort of holding a teenage boy on her lap for an extended period for her hastiness in asking her next question.

“So does this mean you’ll stay?” She pulled away from him, just far enough to gauge by his facial expression where he was at with that issue. He looked pensive for only a moment before the corners of his mouth turned up slightly, and he nodded.

“Yeah, I’ll stay.” 

Sharon paused and savored her son’s company, simply enjoying the warmth blooming within her, a fullness in a void that had been inside her so long that she’d grown to accept it as part of herself. Things were right with her and Riley. After more than ten years, she could comfortably say that she was his mother, and he was her son.

An ominous rumbling from above head snapped both of them to attention, before the high-pitched, rambunctious yells of her three younger children echoed against the walls and they all came barreling down the stairs, Audrey holding Andy, and Matt in hot pursuit.

“Mom! Audrey put Andy on my head and he farted while I was asleep!” 

“Well you should have got up earlier then!”

Though the atmosphere between them was broken, neither Sharon nor Riley seemed ready for it to be over. Reluctantly, Riley extracted himself from her hold and her lap, and though the release of pressure from the weight was a relief for her stiff legs, she mourned the broken contact after feeling so close to him.

“Ri,” she reached out and grasped his wrist before standing up. He looked back at her inquisitively, and though his eyes were still red and swollen, they were the lightest shade of brown she’d seen since he was little.

Sharon reached in and gave Riley a kiss on his left cheek, and then his right. When she pulled back, his entire face was light and content. 

“I love you Riley,” she whispered.

“I love you Mom,” and he didn’t hesitate for a moment.


	18. Home

In the privacy of his bedroom (his Mom finally called it that), not the guest room, Riley brought out the folded envelope from Brad, his name on the front. 

His chest tight, he opened it and pulled out the folded paper. Nervously, he fanned the paper against his thigh a few times, still not fully committed to reading it. Riley wanted to know what Brad had to say, truly. But if Brad’s words were cruel, and the message threatening… his stomach curdled with the possibility.

No matter what the letter said, he was going to tell his Mom that he was ready for Brad to come back. She deserved to have her husband back. His brothers and sister deserved their Dad. He owed them all at least that much.

Finally biting the bullet, he rapidly unfolded the paper and forced his eyes to focus on the black ink.

_Riley, I want to begin by telling you how sorry I am for how I acted and for what I did. I never should have laid a hand on you. I want to work on my anger so that nothing like that ever happens again. You deserve to feel safe in your own home._

_I do understand that an apology is probably not worth much to you. Apologies can sound overused and disingenuous if the people you love keep treating you the same way after they apologize. So I want to do more for you. I want to show you how a father is supposed to treat his son, if you’ll let me._

_I want to teach you how to drive, how to shave, how to ask out someone you have a crush on, or just be there to talk to you about any of the things you don’t want to talk to your Mom about. I want to be there for you, if you’ll have me._

_You are part of our family Riley, and you always have been. I hope that you and your Mom can work through things and that we can all be back together in the same house soon, but I won’t pressure you. I promise to stay away as long as you need me to, so you can feel safe._

_When you’re ready, I’m ready to be there for you._

_Love, Brad_

_____

“Okay, who is going to be Santa this year?” Sharon’s voice rose over the instrumental Christmas music playing over the TV mounted above the hearth.

Where there had previously hung five stockings, now six stockings hung from the thick wooden hearth, shining with the glow from the crackling of the fire underneath. Where they differed in appearance, they all had the common trait of an embroidered name. 

As Riley grabbed another glazed donut from the box perched on the coffee table, shooing away Murph’s intrusive nose that came dangerously close, his eye caught on the stocking with his name. “RILEY” was embroidered in a clean, white script on a red velvet stocking with a hand-stitched Rudolph below. He’d easily spent hours staring at it since it had been hung with the rest of the family’s stockings, weeks before.

Next to him, Andy practically vibrated with excitement at the enormous pile of wrapped presents and gift bags, too massive to even fit fully under the tree. Riley was sure that his little brother didn’t care who passed out the presents, as long as he got his, both first and quickly.

“Riley should be Santa this year!” Called Audrey from the couch, her new green fuzzy slippers looking positively comical contrasting with her green and red striped pajamas. “It’s his first year.” Matt agreed, tossing him the red and white Santa hat. Andy agreed without taking his eyes off the presents.

Riley, mouth full of his donut, didn’t have a chance to turn down the role as Brad placed the hat on his head, the white ball on the end flying forward and bumping his cheek.

“Pass out presents Wiley!” Andy urged him, pulling on his new pair of festive flannel pants. He took another big bite of his breakfast, hardly noticing as the dried glaze flakes fell to the carpet before being quickly lapped up by the dog.

As his Mom settled on the couch next to Brad, coffee cup in hand, she met his blank expression expectantly. 

“I’d get going on passing the presents out if I were you Ri, or else your brother might just shoot through the ceiling.” Again, he looked down at Andy, who looked at him as though he were the actual Santa Claus responsible for delivering presents to every child in the world.

Shoving the remainder of the donut in his mouth, he stood from his cross-legged seat on the floor by the fire and started in on the massive gift pile, handing the first one to his youngest brother, who ripped into the paper excitedly without pause before shrieking in joy at the Daniel Tiger figurine set.

Boxes of all sizes, bags with red and green tissue paper poking from the top, and even some envelopes were distributed to all family members by Riley. He could hardly keep up with Andy’s present-opening pace, though the rest of the family waited until all the presents had been handed out to start opening. 

Much to Riley’s surprise, more than a fair number were addressed to him. Every time he picked one up and saw his name written on the Santa’s elf to/from tag, his cheeks burned in embarrassment, but not the bad kind. This was warm, and he felt cared about.

Finally, after the Amazon Warehouse of presents had been depleted, Riley took his seat back among the pile of his own presents that had accumulated, and the festive unwrapping began.

Ooohs and ahhhs, boisterous thank yous, and tearing paper dominated the soundscape for the next half-hour. Matt and Andy moved at sonic speed, pausing more on the electronics than the clothing offerings. Andy was long-finished with opening and was running around the living room making airplane sounds with his new plane toy. Brad and Sharon sat closely on the couch, unwrapping a present periodically, but far more interested in watching their children’s faces light up in surprise.

Riley took his time, not used to unwrapping any presents, nevertheless an entire pile of them. He wanted to savor the experience and give proper gratitude for each and every gift. But, reading the room, if he did that the family would be here until New Year’s Day.

So he sped up his pace, and with every present, the face-splitting grin he tried to hide became harder and harder to hold back. New clothing, shoes, and a phone were just a few of the highlights for Riley. He quickly felt like it was all far too much when he opened a larger box and found a laptop inside, from both Sharon and Brad according to the tag. 

Riley even had a few small trinkets from his siblings, and the inclusion helped him feel further melted into the family dynamic. No longer oil amongst water. Or a black fly in lemonade.

Finally, once everyone’s presents were opened, Matt immediately asked to go outside to test out his new drone and was halfway out the door before Brad called out for him to grab his coat. Audrey was already busy with her new tablet, distractedly walking up the stairs without watching where she was going. And Andy, bless his little heart, was passed out in a pile of wrapping paper, arms wrapped tightly around his new stuffed dog.

Brad and Sharon’s eyes shone bright with fondness and amusement at their youngest.

Just as Riley thought to stand up and offer to begin cleaning the massive mess of paper, bags, bows, and ribbon, his Mom’s attention turned to him. Riley still wasn’t to the point where he could fight off the knee-jerk reaction of dread when her attention turned directly on him. It was hard to rid himself of the expectation that this was all going to fall apart from under him again.

But Sharon seemed to sense his misgivings and she flashed him a warm smile, helping ease him. She motioned to come sit next to her on the couch, on the opposite side of Brad.

Riley complied, unable to completely shake his instincts and sitting robotically on the leather furniture. 

“We had another present for you Ri…” His mom held out a large yellow envelope with a single red bow secured to the corner. Nothing was written on the front.

Riley held up his hands, the embarrassment burning again. “No guys, um, you’ve already given me way too much,” he protested, but Brad helped push the envelope further toward him, not taking “no” for an answer.

“Just open it Riley,” Brad instructed, with the same gentle tone as he spoke to his actual children. Riley couldn’t refuse this time, grabbing the envelope tentatively before opening the end and pulling out the stack of papers.

“PETITION FOR ADOPTION” showed across the top, with several areas of fine print and areas to sign below.

Riley’s stomach felt different. It didn’t feel like it was falling into a pit, or clenching tightly in preparation of an attack. It still tingled nervously, but the sensation was more akin to… butterflies? Were these the happy/nervous butterflies that people always spoke of when presented with a pleasant surprise?

Completely at a loss for words, his eyes scanned the paper, and he saw Brad’s full name next to his own, with spaces highlighted for each of them to sign. 

After a minute, he finally looked up at his Mom and Brad, who looked more nervous than he could ever recall seeing them. 

It didn’t seem real. It couldn’t be true? But his head presented the last part as a question, rather than a definitive statement as it normally would.

“You… want to… adopt me?” He sputtered, tongue tripping over the uncertainty. Brad immediately nodded happily, and Sharon joined in, grabbing her husband’s hand and his own.

“Of course Riley. You are part of this family, and it would be an honor to officially be your Dad.” Riley’s head felt light with disbelief. Brad sounded so… sure. Sure of something so… big. And that big thing was being Riley’s Dad.

Riley had never choked on happiness before. And he didn’t fight the tears this time, though he still resented how much he cried. He chalked it up to an entire childhood of not being given the space to feel his emotions, too preoccupied with surviving his father’s beatings and the spurts of abandonment. 

When his tears started to fall, two landing on the papers before he moved them, Brad spoke up again. 

“Only if this is something you want Riley.” 

He could only laugh jovially through his toothy grin and happy tears. “Yeah, uh, yes! I, uh,” he put the papers down to wipe his eyes and look directly at his… his parents. 

“I want you to adopt me.” Brad and Sharon immediately moved on him, bringing him into the tightest, most sincere hug he’d ever gotten. And for once, he didn’t flinch or tense up in anticipation.

After the hug broke off, Sharon grabbed the papers and flipped through to the back, wiping her own tears with her cotton robe. 

“And Ri, we also put in a petition to change your last name… only if you want.” She sounded so nervous, and, contrary to his character, he cut her off with an emphatic “Yes.”

All traces of his father would be gone. No more Riley Flanagan. He was part of the McGrath family now. Riley McGrath. It sounded so right, like hearing a song for the first time and knowing it’s an instant classic.

Feeling like he was floating, not untethered, Riley was brought back in by his Mom, who gave him a kiss on each cheek, before resting her hands where her lips had been. 

Her chestnut eyes met his, and he saw clearly the woman who’d been his Mommy. He closed his eyes briefly and thought of a timeline where she’d picked him up from Kindergarten that day, of an alternate-reality where he was her and Brad’s biological son, one where he wasn’t scarred countless times over.

But when he opened them back up, and his Mom was still there, Riley decided that none of those alternatives mattered. He had exactly what he wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it for Excavate, but I have a sequel in the works right now! I'll probably post that chapter-by-chapter as I write it instead of pre-writing like I did for this one. After everything that went on in this story, it can't just be wrapped up in a pretty little bow in one chapter at the end. That's just not how life works. 
> 
> Look for "Fallout" coming soon!
> 
> I really appreciate the comments, kudos, and support from everyone for this project! It was so nice to get back into writing again.


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